Rewilding

Portugal Wildlife

Rewilding and Rehabilitating Wildlife Areas

On our Nature Reserve we are practising Ecological Restoration and Rehabilitation rather than Rewilding.

We do not have enough space to re-introduce species that no longer occur here.

So our aim is to turn old farmland back to a Wildlife Area by means of passive and active Ecological Rehabilitation.

However some of what we do on the reserve is the same as rewilding.

For example we use the concept of Keystone Species to assist the rehabilitation process.

Our best example are the Wild Boars that now thrive and live on our reserve in security and safety.

Their activities naturally assist other plant and animal species on the reserve as explained in the superb graphic below.

Another method we use is to leave Dead Wood on the reserve when trees die. The dead and decaying wood is an extremely valuable wildlife resource as explained below.

Another Keystone species, notably for aquatic environments, is the Eurasian Otter.

These three excellent graphics are reproduced here with permission of Jeroen Helmer and Ark Rewilding Netherlands, a Rewilding project based in the Netherlands.

Links to Portugal Nature Reserve webpages:

Most Recent Sightings

Reptiles and Amphibians