Of course, I didn’t restrict my discussions to British beavers. My travels during the year brought me in contact with the histories of beavers in other places, including Latvia<\/a>,\u00a0Berlin<\/a>, and my nearby zoo in Lycksele<\/a>. I also commented on the Canadian beavers which had been brought to Finland<\/a>. And I can’t forget to\u00a0mention the flying beavers reintroduced via parachute<\/a>\u00a0in the US.<\/p>\n My favourite beaver post of the year had to be about eating beaver for Lent<\/a>. It’s a great example of how medieval history and modern history can intersect. Of course, being trained first in history as a medievalist, I like to bring older history into the blog, which I did with posts on\u00a0otters appearing on Olaus Magnus’s 16th century map<\/a> of the North and the animals in the early medieval Life of St. Cuthbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n My most read post on this blog is about beavers too, but it’s actually from 2013. “On the time I drank castoreum”<\/a> ended up being linked to by an NPR article in March 2014 on castoreum flavouring and the result was a huge spike in readership. That post has nearly 1200 views! I had a follow-up this year on castoreum as a driver for beaver hunting<\/a>\u00a0rather than just fur, but it’s popularity is nothing like the drinking post.<\/p>\n Muskox, the other main subject of this blog,\u00a0has\u00a0to be the worst named animal on the planet<\/a> since it is neither an ox nor produces musk. Its name is certainly not the only thing contentious about it. It can be an inconvenient animal<\/a>, especially when it crosses lines over national boundaries<\/a>\u00a0(like a herd did in the 1970s<\/a>) or into urban areas, resulting in sanctioned culls<\/a>. Financial compensation<\/a> is often required when muskoxen have caused damage within ‘allowed’ areas.\u00a0Reintroduction\u00a0efforts are anything but cheap\u00a0– in the case of the muskoxen, there was\u00a0significant fundraising<\/a>\u00a0(the beaver reintroduction had required fundraising<\/a> too).<\/p>\n The original motivations to bring the muskoxen to Norway and Svalbard were\u00a0complicated and political<\/a>, although practical considerations like its potential use as a meat source<\/a>\u00a0as an acclimatised animal<\/a> were also fundamental. Patriotism<\/a>\u00a0and nationalism<\/a> are key elements\u00a0in reintroduction because there is often a sense that the animal should belong\u00a0within a particular nationstate where it is currently absent. There remains the question, though, as to whether previously extinct animals will be\u00a0counted as ‘citizens’<\/a>, which often depends in turn on how lines in time<\/a> are drawn by scientists. An animal’s history and the way in which that animal is remembered in the communal memory<\/a> can also affect its acceptance–this applies even to introduced species that can become so accepted that they are\u00a0state symbols<\/a>. All of these cultural issues factor into how ‘attractive’ a reintroduction is<\/a>, even if people think they are being ‘scientific’ about their decisions.<\/p>\n One of the most interesting muskox stories this year was the pair of muskoxen traded to China in exchange for a pair of pandas<\/a> in 1972. Milton and Milton did not fare well in the Chinese zoo and soon died. It was a sad story, although it didn’t get as much attention as\u00a0the death of Marius the giraffe<\/a> in the Copenhagen zoo in February. That was likewise dwarfed by the media coverage of the 100th anniversary death of Martha<\/a>, the last passenger pigeon, who was put on display at the Smithsonian<\/a>. Of course,\u00a0it’s not\u00a0easy to know you’ve seen the last of a species<\/a>, just as it is difficult to trace the beginning of an idea<\/a>.<\/p>\n I included a fair share of other species on this blog in 2014\u00a0too, including the cultural history of\u00a0vultures<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cod<\/a>, a suggestion to reintroduce wild reindeer as fodder for wolves<\/a>, the relationship between American bison and Native American<\/a>, and the amazing success of axolotls in captivity<\/a> in spite of their near-extinction in the wild. Insects\u00a0even made an appearance in posts about\u00a0beaver beetle specimens<\/a>\u00a0and their missing data and parasite co-reintroduction<\/a>.\u00a0I was also interviewed for a feature article on responses to raccoon dogs entering\u00a0Sweden<\/a>\u00a0that appeared in the magazine Filter<\/em> in June.<\/p>\n I had noticed raccoon dogs in an exhibit case of ‘new species in Sweden’ at the Swedish Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseum), which I think\u00a0has missed out on telling possible species histories<\/a>.The Natural History Museum in Brussels, however, was\u00a0very good about giving animals personality and a voice<\/a>,\u00a0and the Field Museum in Chicago<\/a> included some compelling animal histories. I always keep an eye out for reintroduced animals in exhibits, like the beavers at Oulu University’s exhibit on Finnish animals<\/a>\u00a0and in Lund University’s post-glacial fauna of Sweden exhibit<\/a>.\u00a0A visit to a parish school museum in Estonia even prompted me to write about beavers on school posters<\/a>. A northern bald ibis, which is being reintroduced as a migratory bird between Germany and Italy, is being\u00a0exhibited as part of the Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibit<\/a> at the Deutches Museum in Munich.<\/p>\n The Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibit highlighted for me the problem of attempts to de-humanise thoroughly human landscapes<\/a>, especially when humans are treated as\u00a0‘unnatural’<\/a>\u00a0in restoration and rewilding discourse. A similar thing happens with deextinction talk<\/a> that seems to overlook the social and cultural barriers to actually reintroducing previously long-dead species. We have the power to envision wilder worlds<\/a>, but only if we\u00a0make\u00a0humans visible in environmental issues<\/a>\u00a0as integrated parts of the Earth.<\/p>\n
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