[bigchicken]

I saw an artical about lynx being released into the wild in Britain. What are your thoughts, I think it is madness as if we haven't got enough things out there that will take or livestock. I read that the release of beavers is in difficulty even after throughing loads of money at the project The population of buzzards magpies and foxes around where I live are on the up and wild birds are in trouble and adding lynx to the mix will do no good, this country is not the same place it was when lynx were a native animal many many years ago.

[Mammyshaz]

I really cannot see it being done. There was so much hype about releasing wolves but that has died down now.
When all the pros and cons are considered I'm sure it will be a non contender. Look at the problems with the wild boar.

[fiestyredhead331]

then chuck in the wolves and bears.........
http://www.countryfile.com/countryside/plans-reintroduce-wolves-alladale-scotland

IMHO I can't see the benefit of reintroducing these 

as you say, it's bad enough dealing foxes, badgers, pine martens etc without having to worry about these too, I did watch a documentary from Alaska where they are having problems with wild wolf packs etc coming into residential areas and I suspect the same would eventually happen here!

[oor wullie]

I can't see it happening as described.  The landowners mentioned don't seem to have enough land to support these animals unless they were fenced in and it was treated a bit like a safari park.  Much like at Alladale - they don't have wild wolves, boar etc but animals kept in fenced enclosures.

Releasing animals like this would probably require 50 years of regional scale preparation in increasing forest habitat for them to live in and the cooperation of a lot of land owners to facilitate this.

On the other hand a lot of the public resistance is imagined rather than real.  I read a report on wolves (I can't remember where it was) that were killing a lot of sheep, over several years they collected DNA from all the sheep carcases and found that about 95% of the "wolf" kills were actually done by dogs.
We get loads of birds of prey - red kites and buzzards circling overhead every day, perigrines, hen harriers (which nested on our croft last year) and kestrels pretty frequently.  Never once has anything even threatened out hens, even the bantams which are unprotected by any pen.  I did see an eagle with a red grouse a couple of months ago but other than that I struggle to accept how gamekeepers and farmers complaints about birds of prey can actually be based in fact rather than just attitude.

We could do with a big predator that can take deer as the deer population is at record levels and their overgrazing is the major contributer to so much of the land in the highlands being so desolate.  I doubt lynx would be big enough to take red deer and a cat that could take a red deer might bring other issues (tigers anyone?) so I might have to just keep eating venison myself to help improve the countryside!

[Clarebelle]

Sorry to be controversial, but I for one would love to see such a beautiful animal return to our shores. I appreciate the potential risk to livestock, but if this were to ever happen (I think it unlikely), like someone else pointed out, they would need to prepare huge swathes of habitat. I don't think that in this day and age the UK has enough suitable habitat to maintain a large population, I think livestock owners would still find they had to worry about dogs far more.

[Thyme]

Lynx do take red deer but they go for the calves and yearlings, not the adults.

I suspect if there were other predators like lynx here, foxes might be different.  There were lynx (bobcats) where I grew up and you never saw them, but also our foxes were much much fewer and shyer than they are here -- you never saw a fox either.  It seems when a top predator is gone the next predator down may start behaving like the top -- in the USA where the wolves are gone the coyotes are becoming more and more like wolves.

[Castle Farm]

Another stupid idea from the people that want to turn the countryside into an animal safari park.


Most farmers would take a gun to them.

[Penninehillbilly]

Perhaps they could try them on Orkney so Clarebelle could see them, and the rest of the UK could watch and see what happens? 

[Rosemary]

Don't know enough about lynx to have a worthwhile opinion.

However, if man isn't going to reduce the deer numbers, maybe we need a natural predator that will.

[Clarebelle]

For a start, there isn't the habitat. I'm not saying a project like this should get the go ahead, but I'm also not saying that if it did it would automatically mean farmers would be overrun with slavering lynx boldly feasting on their livestock. Like others have pointed out, with more research it could prove effective against the out of control deer population.

[Penninehillbilly]

As regards deer I would prefer to see LICENCED culls to be encouraged, deer should be looked on as a meat source, not just a pretty face (which it is of course), shame really, but their numbers do need contolling, and if I could get one of the little blighters that come into my young trees I wouldn't hesitate to get it in thefreezer.

[SallyintNorth]

I don't know enough about lynx to have an opinion, but I have always hoped that we would find a way to reintroduce the wolf.

If it is done, then it needs to be done in concert with sheepfarmers, of course.  In theory there should be large tracts of mountain and woodland where there are plenty of deer and few sheep, and perhaps where the sheep that there are could be guarded by livestock guardian dogs, as happens elsewhere in the world.

Very interesting projects to follow 

[Marches Farmer]

The article suggested a fund be set up to recompense farmers losing stock, as though "stock" were tomato plants or Christmas trees.  Never mind that the "stock" may well be the result of years of careful selective breeding, buying in good bloodlines and countless hours of care and attention in the worst of weather.  Never mind that a shepherd may find the bloodied corpses and have to dispose of them or spend hours tramping the ground looking for missing "stock".

As to birds of prey, they are now too numerous in many areas - our neighbour had buzzards flying down into his farmyard and taking pullets.  There are so many on our local common the wildlife trust considers the adders and slow worms are now extinct.

[SallyintNorth]

I'd be surprised to find that buzzards are taking pullets.  I lived in Exmoor for years, with plentiful buzzards and lots of friends breeding chickens, and never heard of a buzzard taking one.  A goshawk will take a hen, though, and it's easy to think you've seen a buzzard if you didn't realise you might be looking at a goshawk

I've not heard of buzzards eating snakes.  They take carrion, and love rats.  According to the RSPB website, they will eat earthworms if they can't find their favoured foods, but it doesn't mention them taking adders...

The most prevalent predator of snakes in the UK is surely the hedgehog? 

And, according to something I read, if they have grazing ponies on your common, they'll kill snakes if they come across them

[nutterly_uts]

perhaps where the sheep that there are could be guarded by livestock guardian dogs, as happens elsewhere in the world.

Friend looked into a guardian dog as she was having a lot of dog attacks and of the breeds and breeders she spoke to, NONE of them were keen for their dogs to do their natural job!! Plus she was worried about liability