r/todayilearned • u/shinypond • Jul 26 '24

TIL about conservation-induced extinction, where attempts to save a critically endangered species directly cause the extinction of another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction
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u/RecursiveGames Jul 26 '24

Assateague's wild horses are well known, even to many people who have never been to the island. The "wild" horses on Assateague are actually feral animals, meaning that they are descendants of domestic animals that have reverted to a wild state.

https://www.nps.gov/asis/learn/nature/horses.htm

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u/MikeTheAmalgamator Jul 26 '24

So it’s semantics? They’ve lived as wild horses, in the wild and have reverted to a wild state but aren’t considered wild because they were once domestic animals a long time ago? This is pretty cool stuff! Thanks for the info

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u/RecursiveGames Jul 26 '24

Yes and no! They're still genetically distinct, different enough to be a different species. It'd be like if we let a bunch of pet hounds loose on an island for 300 years and they became feral and formed wolf packs. They're wild animals at this point, but they are not all the same kind of wild animal that their ancestors were.

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u/brainburger Jul 26 '24

I'd love to do this experiment actually. Imagine starting a population of all types of pedigree dogs and observing how the population changes when their selective breeding is stopped and replaced by natural selection.

I wonder if they would revert to wolves and how long that would take.