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Ars Technica is reporting that groups of individual animals from species re-introduced to areas take generations to settle in. Even if they were were once found in that same area it takes multiple generations to re-establish migration routes and other mass movement patterns if the animals had been eradicated from the area and there is no continuity. So the takeaway is that re-introduction requires decades or centuries if the behavior is left unaddressed:
In many areas of the globe, native species have been wiped out of large areas of their range even though some habitats that could support them were left intact or later restored. That has allowed conservationists to reintroduce these species, sometimes with spectacular success. The North American bison, for example, has gradually returned from near extinction largely due to reintroductions from the few small herds that were once left.
But not all of these reintroductions have worked out, and a paper in this week's Science suggests a reason: over generations, native populations develop a "culture" that helps them to understand when and where to migrate. New populations, dropped into an unfamiliar landscape, tend to sit still and don't make the most out of their habitat.
An example with birds was Operation Migration which ran for 25 years and used ultralight aircraft to guide new birds along good migration routes. However, land-bound animals will have a harder time navigating manmade obstacles.
Is ungulate migration culturally transmitted? Evidence of social learning from translocated animals (open, DOI: 10.1126/science.aat0985) (DX)
(Score: 4, Disagree) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 08 2018, @11:23PM (4 children)
This research mainly serves to show that those who think herbivorous animals are brainless reactive creatures who do everything through instinct, born already programmed with all the knowledge they need and don't truly learn anything, are wrong. True, they aren't very bright, and they don't need to be, but the rest of us understood they do nevertheless have functioning brains, it's not all spinal nerves.
In the Nature vs Nurture debate, this is another win for Nurture.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 08 2018, @11:51PM (2 children)
When you say "herbivores", are you talking about vegans?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @12:25AM (1 child)
Most vegans aren't born like that. They are weak-minded and thus readily converted by existing vegans. It's a lot like homosexuality in that way.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @03:44AM
Born homosexual and thus readily converted by existing vegans? Hmmmm, seems to check out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @05:56AM
But they are preprogrammed to migrate and to not run in circles crying the sky is falling as in the case of a forest fire or other natural disaster.
The high level template is there, not the fine details. Humans are born with the instinct for language, but need help with the exact details (sentence and idea structure, vocabulary, etc). One person speaks German, another Greek, but most all humans learn to speak. This in turn has feedback towards the way people think and perceive the world.