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Lynx should be reintroduced in the Scottish countryside, according to one of the country’s leading conservation bodies.

Not, I admit, based on any great logic. Just, yes.

One of the centres of the Iberian lynx breeding programs is right around the corner from me. Thoroughly support it.

Don’t think I’d support bringing back tigers or lions, if these had been part of the indigenous fauna of our isles (well, they were at one time, lions at least, but rather different climate then) but the lynx? Not a direct threat to human life so yes.

An emotional reaction rather than a logical one but there we go.

18 thoughts on “Yes”

  1. So Much for Subtlety

    An emotional reaction rather than a logical one but there we go

    Why isn’t it logical? Lynx do not threaten people. They may threaten Scotland’s wild cats but they are hardly genuinely wild these days. Too much interbreeding. They may threaten the odd chicken and maybe a few lambs.

    But if it gives some people pleasure, why not allow them to do it?

    Is there a logical reason not to?

  2. bloke (not) in spain

    @SMfS
    “We need bears and wolves!”
    So you’re walking back from the bar, 2 o’clock in the morning & on the narrow lane to the house you come across a couple of large grey things chewing on half a goat.
    Still feel the same way?
    When it’s no longer theoretical, you tend to have mixed feelings.

  3. Will the animals the lynx will eat get a say in the decision?

    Introducing any organism into an environment other than by the process of evolution, will have effects which cannot be predetermined and likely catastrophic for some elements.

    The lynx was evolved out of the environment by natural selection and that environment and the organisms in it have evolved without it.

    Putting the lynx back in will have consequences. Worse, it is absolutely certain that if the reintroduction of the lynx is not successful and it does not establish itself, the ‘environmentalists’ who believe in ‘nature’ will certainly intervene to alter whatever is needed, cull animals, change habitats, so their pet project will succeed and the BBC can make a programme about it.

    Curious that someone against planned intervention in economies because since the planners can never have enough knowledge they do more harm than good, is OK with planned intervention in nature where the planners certaintly can never have enough knowledge and just like their economy counterparts, historically produce ‘unintended consequences’.

  4. I was googling Scottish beavers recently. It turns out that what you might call the “private enterprise” reintroduction east of the watershed is thriving a little better than the “official” reintroduction in the west. Consequently there seem to have been calls for the former to be suppressed. Naturally!

  5. If they want to introduce lynx, why not try it first with sterilised animals? I guess the lifespan of a wild lynx is about five years- half a dozen couldn’t do enough damage to make it irreversible in that time, but they could be assessed.

    Dearieme, Scottish beaver is always laced with madness.

  6. So Much for Subtlety

    John B – “Will the animals the lynx will eat get a say in the decision?”

    To be honest, apart from lambs what is left for them to eat? The introduced rabbit? Their diet consists of pretty much anything that won’t bite back with their main prey being deer. Great. Britain is being over-run with those Chinese muntjac deer. Work out nicely. They also eat foxes. I won’t lose any sleep over that. And if they have a preference for grey squirrels, they will be my new best friends.

    “Introducing any organism into an environment other than by the process of evolution, will have effects which cannot be predetermined and likely catastrophic for some elements.”

    Or re-introducing in this case.

    “The lynx was evolved out of the environment by natural selection and that environment and the organisms in it have evolved without it.”

    The lynx has been missing from the UK for a relatively short time. Well 4,000 years is the traditional date but some claim since the mid-5th century. The environment has changed a lot but it has not had a great deal of time to actually evolve much.

    “Curious that someone against planned intervention in economies because since the planners can never have enough knowledge they do more harm than good, is OK with planned intervention in nature where the planners certaintly can never have enough knowledge and just like their economy counterparts, historically produce ‘unintended consequences’.”

    But this is not planning. This is civil society at work.

    Interested – “If they want to introduce lynx, why not try it first with sterilised animals? I guess the lifespan of a wild lynx is about five years- half a dozen couldn’t do enough damage to make it irreversible in that time, but they could be assessed.”

    Why bother? The problem with introductions are boring animals who quietly go about changing the environment without anyone noticing. The lynx is a moderately large apex predator. If it became a problem, the government could just lift its protection order and they would be hunted into rapid extinction. Farmers do not take the loss of lambs and I would guess, calves all that lightly.

    “Scottish beaver is always laced with madness.”

    You know, that is precisely my experience. Amazing.

  7. Lynx prey on ground nesting birds as well, I suppose. Interesting that the urban eco warriors consulted farmers but not managers of grouse moors.

    Scottish conservationists seem intent on finishing off what Agricola and the Duke of Cumberland started.

    They’ll make it a desert and call it Pax Holyrooda.

  8. So Much for Subtlety

    bloke (not) in spain – “So you’re walking back from the bar, 2 o’clock in the morning & on the narrow lane to the house you come across a couple of large grey things chewing on half a goat. Still feel the same way?”

    Oh come on, you know I am going to make everything about immigration in the end. It is just not sporting unless you make it a little bit of a stretch. I don’t mind being trolled, but this is just shooting fish in a barrel.

    I think we will have some time to go before we have urban wolves. Well, with four legs anyway. And urban lynxes are a real possibility but I would think no one would ever see one. I would love to see lynx in London.

    bloke in france – “Lynx prey on ground nesting birds as well, I suppose. Interesting that the urban eco warriors consulted farmers but not managers of grouse moors.”

    Lynx also live in mountains and forests. They are not exactly likely to wander on to a Scottish moor looking for grouse. As it happens, I fully support re-treeing much of Scotland, if that is what the landowners want, and then they might have a problem. I also think grouse is a pretty poor use of the land, but if that is what the owners want to do, I am fine with it. However that does not mean that other people ought to be prevented from doing what they want to do because of the grouse.

    I am sure there is a reasonable compromise here. We can introduce the lynx and land owners can shoot whatever they damn well please on their own land – grouse or lynx alike. How could anyone object to that?

    “They’ll make it a desert and call it Pax Holyrooda.”

    The threat to the grouse in Scotland ain’t lynx. It is the socialist tendencies of the Scottish government which wants to nationalise the land and bring back crofters.

  9. bloke (not) in spain

    “I think we will have some time to go before we have urban wolves. ”
    Ah, but it’s not your opinion we need to be asking. It’s the furry buggers’. France reintroduced the wolf & now they’ve got them round Paris.
    One is told wolves were reintroduced into the Pyrenees. One gathers there might also be a few over in Tim’s direction. One is assured. Assured. The Sierra Nevadas wolf is extinct. Except. No-one seems to have mentioned this to C Lupus.

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