Talk of reintroducing lynx

[PaulSanderson]

Absolutly no chance, thankfully!

+1!!! Imagine trying to regulate that!! Any old tom, dick and dirty-harry tootling around the woods with firearms - no thanks! Especially given that anybody can buy an air rifle and make it FAC-rated illegally.

Back to the Lynx - There have been calls for years to reintroduce apex predators back to the UK, and despite being for it for several reasons, it will just never happen.

Consider the other "keystone" species, those that help shape the landscape, such as the beaver. Hardly an apex predator, but because it has the ability to impact the environment of man they are now considering culls. We live in different times now, and man will simply never allow the environmental change these animals will bring to affect us - its sad. We are over-populated, over managed and overly worried about change...

Bring 'em all back I say…they were here way before we were...

 

[Quixoticgeek]

I am a great fan of Beaver.

I am fortunate that there are wild beavers living on the river that flows through the City I live in. I've seen their tail slap when canoeing and have seen evidence of them chewing on trees. I would love to see Beavers reintroduced widely, or at least, not culled and allowed to recover from the escaped populations.

I wrote an essay on reintroduction of the wolf to Scotland for my GCSE geography exam... I think it would be wonderful.

Shame there are so many who don't understand risk, and are NIMBY's about it all.

Julia

 

[Adze]

 

[Miniwhisk]

Others have already made points that I'd make but my feelings are quite strongly weighed against re-introduction and at first, it was hard to answer, 'why'. I think its because I don't like the idea of threatening a now established animal kingdom with a terrifying preditor. Our now native animals have great chances to thrive and I think this is good. Lynx are not only going to take deer, they'll take anything available and easy - like all cats - our birds will be on that list and heaven forbid, our small children and their pets could be at risk. As said before, our meat farming industries will have additional pressures to protect livestock.

We don't let our dogs chase sheep and we have laws about this. Seems to me that law is made a mockery of if they allow lynx to sprint after a sheep, 'naturally'!

Imagine a lynx having got into a chicken farm, you're garden where pet rabbit jumps around happily.

Why cannot we have hunting rights (permits of course) on our national lands? Why don't polititians consider our human place in the balance of nature?

 

[Robson Valley]

Ecology is such that it's fatal for predators to damage prey populations. The cats are and must be opportunists.
Very elusive and very difficult to find even when you might go looking for them. Suppose 2 pairs were introduced.
Can you imagine them dragging down thousands and thousands of sheep and deer each year? Kill a deer with your bare hands.
Eat the whole thing, raw. . . .will take a while, yes?

In the summers, we have black bears and grizzly bears.
All year we have cougars, bobcats and lynx. All year we have coyotes and several wolf packs.
I've lived just 15 years in this mountain village. I'm out up the logging roads 20-40 days per summer.
Only once did I sneak up on a lynx pair with 3 kittens = quite a 10 minute show. I have half an idea where the den is.
I don't hunt there any more.

Twice have I heard of cattle being bothered by grizz. There's much more risk to small school children at country
school bus stops than livestock/safety in numbers. That all got "regulated" one Friday afternoon.
There's much more risk right here in the village on dark winter afternoons with little kids walking home from school.
The cougars come into town, after the resident & fearless groups of deer.

 

[Toddy]

We're island people. Islands, especially over populated ones, are not good places for successful carnivore survival. They end up so reduced in numbers that it becomes a genetic bottleneck and an incredibly inbred group.
That's before any issues of what they're actually going to hunt, where they're going to hunt, what's (who most likely) is going to hunt them how compensation will work for any farm animals that become prey…….and on our busy islands soon or later someone's going to blame them for something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_lynx
for an idea of the normal range…that's not easy here, not to avoid people and farm animals.

If the land bridges were still there, then perhaps. But they're not, and they haven't been for 16,000 years in Ireland's case or 6,000 years in Britain's. The lynx never did make it to Ireland, and many species didn't ever make it to Britain either before the land bridge was inundated.

So, Great Britain was the outermost edge of their range, and as far as we know they were extinct by the end of the Roman period.
Why the hang do we want to bring them back ?

To take over culling deer ? Get a grip, they'll take anything that they think they can take down, and by all accounts that varies from birds to goats (not a lot of them wild in the UK, but there's this woolly speedbump of a thing called a Sheep, and there are millions of those) from rabbits to deer. The deer are prolific, but so are other beasts. You can't exactly whack a lynx on the nose with the rolled up newspaper and say, "No!", in a firm and determined voice….well not an expect it to pay heed to the No eating sheep edict

A few lynx aren't going to make much of an impression on the 60,000 too many deer on the hills. One could argue that a few lynx aren't going to make much of an impression anything too though.

I think it's the genetic bottleneck that the really bad idea, and once here, that there's no way off for them.

M

 

[Dave]

I havent read through the thread, but Im all for the idea of reintroducing them, or 'rewilding' in general.

 

[Gooner]

Others have already made points that I'd make but my feelings are quite strongly weighed against re-introduction and at first, it was hard to answer, 'why'. I think its because I don't like the idea of threatening a now established animal kingdom with a terrifying preditor. Our now native animals have great chances to thrive and I think this is good. Lynx are not only going to take deer, they'll take anything available and easy - like all cats - our birds will be on that list and heaven forbid, our small children and their pets could be at risk. As said before, our meat farming industries will have additional pressures to protect livestock

We don't let our dogs chase sheep and we have laws about this. Seems to me that law is made a mockery of if they allow lynx to sprint after a sheep, 'naturally'!

Imagine a lynx having got into a chicken farm, you're garden where pet rabbit jumps around happily.

Why cannot we have hunting rights (permits of course) on our national lands? Why don't polititians consider our human place in the balance of nature?

+ One , well put Miniwhisk

 

[Toddy]

I havent read through the thread, but Im all for the idea of reintroducing them, or 'rewilding' in general.

Go on, engage the brain; read the thread

M

 

[santaman2000]

.......I think it's the genetic bottleneck that the really bad idea, and once here, that there's no way off for them.

M

Your other arguments are valid enough but I agree this is probably the most compelling.

 

[Robson Valley]

I recall that population biologists think of extinction in several phases.
Of course, there's the end of every last single individual of a species = the end.
Also, there's a reproductive threshhold. The population is of some size, 'n' , where reproductive success
can in no way offset mortality. Yes, you see them. Yes, they reproduce. Yes, they are dwindling in number.
No number of easy prey, right in their faces, can compensate.
What is 'n' for which ever Lynx species is selected? I've been reading that the Iberian Lynx has the nearest genetic relationship.
I would not bet on it for transplanted survivorship.

Cheetah have gone through the genetic bottleneck, so the greatest fear is whatevery kills some may kill them all
due to their genetic vulnerability. Possibly that was the fate of the British lynx population with the land bridges gone.

 

[Toddy]

Funnily enough I was just thinking about the cheetah and it's bottleneck. It was the Romans that caused that; they wanted them for the arenas. They literally slaughtered millions of animals for their bloodthirsty spectacles. Imported them from all over the empire too…..maybe that's why there were no lynx left in GB I suspect given their chosen range that they were never very numerous here anyway, especially after folks started using axes to clear the forests.

I'm very fond of our richly diverse islands but sometimes when we discuss things like wolves, bears and wild cats, I think maybe being on a continent where they can move out of the way, and in the spaces between, it might be a quiet pleasure to know they still exist

M

 

[Robson Valley]

I don't need to have any of them move out of my way, I prefer to give way to all of them.

I'm out there for some game to eat, a true luxury but for the cats, it's business as usual, every dang day.
Ever since I watched the Lynx pair with their 3 kittens, I do not hunt within a mile of where I suspect the den is.
It's a dirt/rock/clay cliffside maybe 100'+, right beside the road. One day, years ago, I think that the dogs (Chesapeake Bay Retrievers) pushed up the cats.
That was time for me and the dogs to move on. I don't ever go back there to hunt. I have no regrets at all.

All those kinds of animals are around me all the time except for the bears' hibernation. Don't usually pay much attention.
Idiots think it's cool to try to call wolves. Maybe when there's 15 of them around you at night, you change your mind about being stupid?
We surprise eachother! I hunt sometimes, they have to hunt all the time. To sneak up on them (rare) and watch for a while
is better than any crap on the Tube.

Momma Grizz and her 2 cubs come into your camp. You have a hammock, sleeping bag and a tarp cover. You have all your food right beside you.
Mom and the kids circle your hammock 2X. What color is the inside of your sleeping bag?

 

[FKeate]

Can't stand Lynx, that stench just reminds me of my secondary school changing room...

 

[mountainm]

Can't stand Lynx, that stench just reminds me of my secondary school changing room...

Taxi for FKeate...

 

[John Fenna]

When they say that lynx might take unsupervised small children and pets, is it the pro or anti lobby speaking?

 

[Stevie777]

So, Great Britain was the outermost edge of their range, and as far as we know they were extinct by the end of the Roman period.
Why the hang do we want to bring them back ?

Because they are furry and awesome to look at. And it would add a level of excitement to wild camping..Bears, Wolves, Lynx, i'm all for it. .

 

[Stevie777]

When they say that lynx might take unsupervised small children and pets, is it the pro or anti lobby speaking?

Didn't they say the same about Foxes when the Fox hunting issue was flavour of the month. Hey, we all need a Bogeyman. right??

 

[spandit]

I am a great fan of Beaver

 

[sunndog]

only just came back to this thread........cant believe that line went un-quoted for so long


also just typed out and then deleted about 5 different comments for fear of incurring the wrath of either julia or the mods