The "leaving ecosystems alone" ship sailed almost everywhere on Earth tens of thousands of years ago. Humans have always been a part of, and had impacts upon, the ecosystems we've lived in. Certainly moreso in recent centuries.
Not to say that further interventions will be helpful in "reestablishing balance".
Even the concept of "balance" or homeostasis has long been recognized to not really exist in any ecosystem.
I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
>I agree, but I would be curious about cases where nature could reclaim habitat faster if we give it some tools for the job. I can't really think of what those tools might be off hand though--apart from some kind of weapon/disease that better keeps humans away at marginal detriment to the user/host.
That's an interesting line of thought. The only thing that comes to mind is something like giving them fancy hats or paintjobs to encourage more reproductive success in declining species.
One could also imagine releasing a virus which reprogrammed wildlife genomes for resistance against some toxin that we had previously introduced into the environment (ideally we would also stop introducing the toxin...).
But none of these things come down to "heres a tool for you to use". Golly I wish I could come up with some technology that would help the woodpeckers better hunt invasive pine beetles--the forests around me are looking pretty rough--but that's a bit too fantastical to hope for.
Last summer I made an attempt at befriending a crow. It actually went pretty well, but the treasures that he brought me blew my mind:
* French fries
* Cooked pasta, maybe baked ziti?
* BBQ ribs, but just the bone with some sauce on it
* Chicken nuggets
* One dead bird, conveniently opened for me
* Several whole dead baby chicks
* One baby chick's head
I stopped feeding it after it kept leaving us, and my neighbor, the dead birds, and it was fowling (ha) up the water in her bird bath. It loved blueberries, cat food, pepitas, and walnuts. It did not like apples and would toss them aside.
I would shake my car keys when I put the food out, and it would show up a few minutes later, but I never figured out if it just saw me or heard the keys.
