Rapid climate change is forcing scientists to consider for the first time whether to help wildlife relocate to places where they are not currently found, says a group of international researchers who have created a tool for evaluating such relocations.

Assisted wildlife migration was once a taboo conservation strategy because of its potential for harming ecosystems. It is still highly controversial because it’s not clear that we know enough to predict what will happen.

That’s an understatement.

Relocated species might overpopulate their new habitats, cause extinctions of local species, or clog water pipes as invasive zebra mussels have done in the Great Lakes.