Barren Island "Moonscape" Transformed Into Wildlife Haven

[SorellaLaBefana]

A rewilding success story is being celebrated in the Caribbean where, in just a few short years, the barren moonscape of the island of Redonda has been transformed into a lush wildlife sanctuary. Now named the Redonda Ecosystem Reserve, it’s been assigned protected status, becoming one of the largest protected areas in the Caribbean...

A key step in the island’s rewilding involved removing invasive rats and goats that had been introduced by European colonizers and had a devastating impact on native plant and animal species. With them gone, the total vegetation biomass has increased by over 2,000 percent, luring back 15 species of land birds and allowing the population of lizards to thrive...

https://www.iflscience.com/barren-moonscape-becomes-a-wildlife-haven-in-island-rewilding-win-70632

A remarkable achievement! Especially given that "Redonda" is Spanish for "Round" and if you look at the before/after image of the island it could have well been named "Roca Redonda" ("Round Rock&quot before being brought back to life.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

Rachel Carson (in Silent Spring)

[Blues Heron]

1. before and after

[Kali]

4. whoever edited this should be reprimanded

before and after shots should at least try to be similar locations/angles/perspectives.

[Nittersing]

5. Agreed. The video at the link has some better examples. nt

[Blues Heron]

2. smiling bird

[SorellaLaBefana]

10. Thank you for posting this !!

In trying to figure out how you found the PNG, when all I found was the WEBP did (what should have done in the first place) a little reading and found that WEBP was forced on the interweb by The Google and that if a browser indicates it can display WEBP then GIF, JPEG and PNG are all downloaded as WEBP.

Certainly, there are some technical advantages to this (stable release 2018) image format. However, as trying to link to such files from some sites (DU, for example) they are not recognized as images and so (as in OP) displayed as a link rather than pix

Have taken the liberty of using your PNG link to replace the original OP.

Again, thanks! And also thanks for leading me to brush up on image formats.

SLB

[Blues Heron]

11. no prob! Firefox lets you hover over any image on a website and copy the img link

thats all I had to do! Just paste it into a reply and it usually works. Not sure if I can do that on a tablet, so lets hear it for old (2013 laptop) tech!

[Delmette2.0]

3. This reminds me of the changes to Yellowstone Park after wolves were reintroduced.

There was an over abundance of deer and they were eating the creek side vegetation down to the roots. This caused erosion along the banks.

Bring back the wolves and they controlled the deer population which allowed recovery of the vegetation along the creeks.

Just help nature do it's thing.

[Nittersing]

6. Yes! The entire ecosystem was improved!

Trickle down ecosystem actually works! (As opposed to the economic disaster)

Here's an article with all the wonderfullness that occurred. https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/

[Delmette2.0]

8. Thanks for adding the article.

[Nittersing]

7. Love seeing these kind of efforts.

Thanks for posting Sorella.

[Hortensis]

9. That was a smile, a laugh actually. And inspiring

to see the environmental recovery. Thanks for posting, Sorella.