Back To Nature. [Rewilding by Monbiot]

[Ferret75]

To return to the OP….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34510869

"A team of wolf hunters is operating in a region of the French Alps to kill wolves that are seen as a threat to livestock.
The teams were supplied by the state after pressure from shepherds and farmers.
In defiance of EU law, the French government has also relaxed the hunting rules to help farmers defend stocks.
However conservationists argue that wolves are vital to ensuring a proper balance in nature.
In addition, the owner of an estate in the Scottish Highlands has said he is pressing ahead with his plan to create a fenced-in South African-style game reserve as a means of reintroducing the extinct species to the UK."

M

If its got the backing of the estate owner, who is also presumably the owner of local cattle and game, it certainly has a better chance of being successful. Having the space to allow the animals a 'natural sized' territory within an ecosystem big enough to support them certainly makes Scotland ideal.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Toddy]

Says someone living in Derbyshire….put them on your own moorland, and then tell me it's 'ideal'.

There are already wolf packs in zoos in Scotland, from small places like the one in Fife to the Highland wildlfe park where they live in a wood, it's not something unique. All this fellow wants is a bigger zoo…..on land that people use just now.

M

 

[Andy BB]

Herbalist1 makes a convincing argument re complementary medicine, until he brings up cost and Chinese/indian traditional medicine. Have you seen how expensive tiger bone is nowadays? Lion testicle? Rhino horn and elephant tusks? Snake gall-bladders? These things don't just grow on trees, you know. And the ancillary costs! Outfitting a modern African poaching team costs big bucks - those AK47s, radios, medics, drones don't come cheap any more. And sometimes it's just not possible any more to slaughter park rangers willy-nilly with assault rifles, as some of them are getting armed themselves.

 

[boatman]

NHS chaplaincy costs £23.5 million and homeopathy about £4 million a year. May seem trivial amounts to some. How can a useless treatment be efficacious.

"A persons spiritual well being (whether they are of any particular faith or non) is an integral part of their overall well being and numerous studies have demonstrated that."
If a person has no faith then how can their spritual well being sustain them. There are also studies showing that knowing they were being prayed for has actually damaged people's chances of recovery as well as many dubious studies on the subject of religions benefits being promoted.

 

[Ferret75]

Says someone living in Derbyshire….put them on your own moorland, and then tell me it's 'ideal'.

There are already wolf packs in zoos in Scotland, from small places like the one in Fife to the Highland wildlfe park where they live in a wood, it's not something unique. All this fellow wants is a bigger zoo…..on land that people use just now.

M

Sorry Toddy, I was thinking more along the lines of it being his own fenced off nature reserve without public access and therefore his own livestock he was gambling with. If he has escapees into the surrounding ecosystem beyond his own private ground then obviously he should be completely responsible for anything that happens. Nature reserves are about the only manageable way I can see for studying the effects of controlled reintroduction in small countries like the UK.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Goatboy]

For me the problem is that you aren't just fitting a piece of the jigsaw back in place. The "eco-system" that they want to fit them into doesn't exist anymore. Wolves don't just eat the odd weak or sick deer. They rely on a large and deep variety of animals & terrains which simply no longer exist, and haven't for hundreds of years. This'll put pressure on the animals and bring them into conflict with humans; and unfortunately the wolves will be the loosers in that one.
Bit like having foxes on your land. Yes foxes are oppertunist and will nab your chickens if they get the chance. But a fox used to an area will generally eat a large amount of things, bunnies, frogs, worms, carrion. If you've foraged yourself you'll know you need to know the area and where to find things. This also takes time and energy. If you remove that fox by shooting it say within a very short time another fox, or foxes will either move into the area or expand their territories to take it in. These new animals don't know all the choice spots to find all those food sources so go for an easy target. You're lovely hens or ducks. It's a self fulfilling prophesy.
Personally I'd love to see wild wolves in the Scottish countryside but many landowners, farmers and fearfull general public wont. And as to fencing off a large enough area for them yes it's feasable but maintaining such a large area so they don't escape I just cant see. Years of trying to keep deer out of large plantations taught me that pretty quickly.
Just my feelings on it. I don't want to see animals suffer just because someone likes a picture of wolves on their tee-shirt and thinks it'd be neat to see a real one.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Andy BB]

The NHS pay £4million for water pills with no active molecules in them (other than water, of course!)? You are joking, surely!

You know the theory as to why homeopathic treatments work, despite being diluted with water well past the point where any "active ingredient" molecule can be statistically present in the water? It's because water allegedly has memory, and consequently remembers everything it has been in contact with. So it remembers the active ingredient and passes on its benefits to the drinker. As it's reckoned that pretty much all water has, at some stage in its existence, been in close contact with human or animal faeces and urine, lets hope it's memory is a bit hazy, eh?

Must be a bit concerning to think that that nice cup of tea you're currently drinking now remembers running over bubonic plague victims thrown in the river and mixing with the discharge from their oozing bubos, or seeping over rotting corpses in a graveyard, and transferring all that remembered fruity goodness to your tongue. Cheers

 

[Ferret75]

See what you mean GB, but in the end surely its got to be the responsibility of that landowner to prove its safety and feasibility, in conjunction with the local governments environmental experts to grant permission for it to be trialled. If the animals welfare is at risk, then as you say, definitely not. But I would also never want the wolf to become further endangered, and projects like these, unfortunately, are the closest thing to a natural ecosystem for promoting breeding that would be possible in the UK. I don't see any need for introducing anything for the sake of it or aesthetic reasons, but with conservation you usually start small and sometimes have to make well thought out compromises at the beginning while you evaluate the outcomes.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[dewi]

Reintroducing wolves back into Yellowstone made sense. It's a huge area with enough wildlife to support a wolf pack or three, and it was solving the 'elk problem' created by removing the wolves in the first instance.

As has been said, introducing them into a fenced compound in Scotland is going to be nothing more than a glorified zoo. If the landowner doesn't feed the wolves, they'll starve or they'll escape and do real damage to the farming community. That may suit writer's like Monbiot who view the sheep in Scotland as a menace, but I doubt the Scottish people will be best impressed when a hungry wolf pack is roaming. And a hungry wolf pack who don't fear humans because they've been fed in their compound home by the landowner.

 

[Ferret75]

Again, very true, if that's his intention and if there is no proper control or governance of the project. Unfortunately nowadays we have to rely on 'private collections' and zoos / wildlife parks / reserves to maintain the last vestiges of endangered species and their ecosystems. Some of the major national zoos do a fantastic job of it too, and are very often affiliated vital research and reintroduction / breeding programs, its just such a pitiful shame that we are at this stage in the first instance, but that's the reality of it I guess. As we live longer and continue to proliferate no doubt there will be many more such compromises to be made.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Toddy]

I think the beggar just wants to circumvent the Right of Responsible Access

M

 

[Drain Bamaged]

They don’t Have to escape from cages and through fences…..The Mink did not HAVE to escape, Beaver have not HAD to escape, Deer, Wallabies, Wild Boar didn’t have to wait for a tree to knock down or to bridge a retaining fence, Wels Catfish, Zander, Signal Crays never had to wait for floods so they could ‘escape’ There is always one or more well meaning idiot around that will give them a helping hand. Until the Wolves, Lynx, Bears etc. all learn to read the same literature as the ‘so called experts’ and all learn to sign their names agreeing to abide by the rules and not take the easy food (regardless of how hungry they are) then it cannot work. (at least not in the UK)

DB

 

[British Red]

I think the beggar just wants to circumvent the Right of Responsible Access

M

Do you any evidence for that?

 

[dewi]

Can I just say as well... there are a few wolves in Blackpool Zoo... they are at the back of the zoo and I have to be honest, I couldn't look at them properly when I was there because it was tragic to see them in that enclosed environment.

I'm not overly emotional about the whole zoo thing, but what I found at Blackpool was many deeply disturbed animals, anyone who has been to see their elephant will know exactly what I mean.

If we had the room and the environment to release these animals back into the UK, I'd be all for it. Problem is, it'll start with a wide area that they'll rapidly realise is uncontrollable, it'll get reduced and we may as well go to Battersea Dog's Home and look at the caged mutts, because the wolves will probably feel exactly the same.

The other issue, even if this were doable, where will the wolves come from? Can't take them from Canada... they wouldn't last five minutes here. Europe? Again, we don't have anywhere near the natural resources they'd be used to. Where will the wolves come from?

 

[Adze]

homeopathy about £4 million a year.

...and here was me thinking my water rate was a bit high a only £400 a year or so!

 

[Toddy]

Do you any evidence for that?

From this fellow ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/i/page-3-profile-paul-lister-landowner-8909589.html

http://www.christownsendoutdoors.com/2013/10/of-wolves-fences-access-alladale-plans.html

the fellow who said,
"' Lister says “it would not be practical to have people walking around Alladale while wolves roam".

Are you surprised I'm suspicious ?

M

 

[British Red]

Suspicion isn't evidence. It's his land after all and if he meets legislative and welfare requirements, surely its better that wolves roam over thousands of acres than they are cooped up in an enclosure in a zoo? Surely if we are being even handed we should be judging every zoo and wildlife park in the UK by the same standards of space and welfare?

 

[Andy BB]

To be fair, the landowner has a huge problem with uncontrolled herds of deer who basically destroy trees, resulting in scrub rather than reforestation (I also remember reading that this guy had planted some 500,000 trees on his lands). The wolves would seem to be an ideal limiter on deer numbers. And if the wolves attack some of his "domestic" livestock, well. its his domestic livestock.

As to ramblers etc, that's an interesting one. As anyone who lives in the country will tell you, not all ramblers bother to shut gates. So is he intending to bar ALL access to his lands (with padlocked gates etc), or allow access? That hasn't been made clear from this article.

 

[Ferret75]

To be fair, the landowner has a huge problem with uncontrolled herds of deer who basically destroy trees, resulting in scrub rather than reforestation (I also remember reading that this guy had planted some 500,000 trees on his lands). The wolves would seem to be an ideal limiter on deer numbers. And if the wolves attack some of his "domestic" livestock, well. its his domestic livestock.

As to ramblers etc, that's an interesting one. As anyone who lives in the country will tell you, not all ramblers bother to shut gates. So is he intending to bar ALL access to his lands (with padlocked gates etc), or allow access? That hasn't been made clear from this article.

True Andy, A lot of our discussion is based on supposition and conjecture really, because we have little else to go on except the article, but there are some very worrying salient points raised here.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Ferret75]

They don’t Have to escape from cages and through fences…..The Mink did not HAVE to escape, Beaver have not HAD to escape, Deer, Wallabies, Wild Boar didn’t have to wait for a tree to knock down or to bridge a retaining fence, Wels Catfish, Zander, Signal Crays never had to wait for floods so they could ‘escape’ There is always one or more well meaning idiot around that will give them a helping hand. Until the Wolves, Lynx, Bears etc. all learn to read the same literature as the ‘so called experts’ and all learn to sign their names agreeing to abide by the rules and not take the easy food (regardless of how hungry they are) then it cannot work. (at least not in the UK)

DB

I guess if we are talking about small numbers of a larger predator you would almost certainly radio tag them, which would give you some tracking ability. But as you say, there's always someone stupid enough or heinous enough to release or 'free' them, worse still, poison or maim them.

Shamefully Ironic, it takes so little time and relative effort to take a species to near extinction, but trying to bring them back from the brink......

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk