A Work of Hope - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 130

Name of
species

Approximate date of
extinction in Britain

Suitability for
reintroduction

Reintroduction efforts
so far

European
sturgeon

It is not clear when it
last bred in British
rivers, but this might
have been as recently
as the nineteenth
century. Now
critically endangered
everywhere, due to
overfishing, pollution,
dams and weirs.

8 None. Restoring this

monstrous fish to its
native waters, while
difficult,21 21 would be a
magnificent achievement,
and a clear sign that the
ecosystems of both rivers
and seas were being
allowed to recover. There
are already
reintroduction schemes
in the Baltic and North
Seas, 22 and attempts to
boost the last breeding
population in the
Gironde- Garonne-
Dordogne basin in
France. 23

Blue stag
beetle

Probably nineteenth
century, as a
consequence of
deforestation, intense
woodland
management and the
ensuing lack of dead
wood.

10 This is a very large and

striking metallic beetle.
Its reintroduction would
depend on ceasing to
manage some
conservation woodlands.
Like many species, it is
excluded by systematic
coppicing and other
measures that break the
forest canopy.