I can see the attraction, especially if we could be sure that they would reduce the red deer population, which has become a real pest over the last 20 years.
However, even in the Highlands there are very few (habitable) tracts of land where wolves and lynx could live away from humans, and past experience shows that living alongside humans affects the behaviour of wild animals. All the experts swore blind that sea eagles would never, ever take living lambs until a farmer on Mull filmed one in the act.
In spite of that, I am still ready to believe that most sea-eagles do not take lambs, as I have never seen anything to indicate that anything larger than a crow has attacked my own stock. But some sea-eagles do, and I would be surprised if their offspring do not learn to do the same. Buzzards have hovered over my house all my life and, unlike those elsewhere, he appear to leave poultry in peace. That said, I cannot see how they are living off carrion, as there is too little of it around: they have to be taking voles and ground nesting birds (rabbits were extinct here until 3 or 4 years ago).
So what predators eat in one part of the country is not necessarily what they eat in another. And I see no reason not to believe that wolves and lynx would adapt likewise. A pity, because I would love to see these animals in the wild, but not while they're making off with the animals that I spend so much time trying to keep alive. As Marches Farmer says, replacing livestock is not simply a matter of going off and buying a replacement. My own sheep, although of motley lineage are all home bred and can (generally) be relied on to live and produce lambs for 10 years or more on land where 2 in 3 bought-in sheep dies within 3 years. They are not easy to replace.
