be a short read
Dissertation Research - Lynx Reintroduction *Admin Approved*
- Thread starter MS2022
- Start date
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
I have been watching some Youtube videos about European lynx. Why European? Apparently, ours are the biggest in the world ("the size of a small leopard") and Europe's third largest predator after bear and wolf. But don't worry, they make delightful pets and they do kill foxes. I wonder what the reaction would be if we all started applying for licences to keep them under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976?
- Location
- Essex
Adults weigh 10–15 kg (22–33 pounds) and grow up to 80–130 cm (about 31–51 inches) in length. Iberian lynx have a shoulder height of 45–70 cm (about 18–28 ...
Leopards weigh 23 to 31kg.
Leopards weigh 23 to 31kg.
Aye David
Many of us livestock farming types reckon it's way past time urban dwellers were reintroduced to hunger and cold
Hunger and cold have all but become extinct from our towns. With their loss, common sense, comprehension of environmental reality, and consideration for the lives of the few primary producers left has similarly wilted
Great swaths of land are now infested by an over population of keyboard warriors safely protected by armchairs and firewalls; mother nature's balance overloaded by foreign food fed from the petrochemical teet that profits few
I wish you well during the forthcoming famine, and hope you find catharsis when released from the cult of false prophets hysterically preaching rewording of the wilderness
Kind regards
DrDunc
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
if there is one thing that narks me off, it is someone posting a link to a survey, which I complete, then not bothering to interact on the forum with the people who were kind enough to give their time to aid the questioner. It is very, trying to think of the right word, um, rude is not the word, nor is entitled.
Similar words to vegans spouting their religious beliefs of environmental responsibility while consuming food flown from across the planet?
Or anti fossil fuel protesters glued to the ground while wearing plastic clothing?
Or Badger lovers ignorant of the ground nesting birds and happy herbivores that fair in Brock's breakfast?
Those kind of words?
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
To be fair to the O.P, he has been outright insulted rather than given opinions or educated as to why his questionnaire was dismissed by a couple of respondents.
I can't stand the indoctrination tactics used by vegans, rewilders, re-introducers and eco-protesters or their lack of true introspection but I treat each individual with respect until such time as they cease to do the same to me.
I can't stand the indoctrination tactics used by vegans, rewilders, re-introducers and eco-protesters or their lack of true introspection but I treat each individual with respect until such time as they cease to do the same to me.
Hi Dave,
Not at all - I think all the opinions posted on this forum so far are completely valid and very much relevant to my research. With hindsight, my survey seems to frame the reintroduction in a positive light, blindly assuming that there was support for the lynx, but that it was the specific aspects of their introduction that were up for debate. As many of the replies have pointed out, it seems that I am a bit out of touch with current opinions. For that, I apologise. However, I still think my research has merit, even if it shows that there is no support for the lynx what-so-ever. This probably should have been an avenue I explored in the survey, but hindsight is 20-20. I would also like to point out that I, myself, am not 100% in favour of the lynx, and I am certainly not trying to persuade others to be so. I am simply trying to capture and understand current opinions around the topic.
Tis a better man that admits error or ignorance with hindsight, than one who refuses to see
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
of course if you ask a stock farmer, if he is in favour of introducing a predator, that will predate on the stock, it is fairly obvious what the answer will be, and all these views on introductions have to bear in mind the fact that it reduces food produced for people to eat. I know the current zeitgeist is for plant based food~ but I can foresee a worldwide food shortage, and then maybe, food produced from land that can't grow crops will have more importance. We also have issues throughout the world with loss of topsoil, the answer is partly zero till, but also integrating livestock into the arable system to build soil. Again hampered by making livestock farming more difficult. I have read (and posted) studies that show reducing or removing sheep from the hills in Norway has increased global warming, due to the reduced Albedo effect of trees replacing grazing, all this coincides with Wolves moving back into Norway and making losses due to predation causing sheep farming on the mountains unviable. Also bear in mind 2/3 of UK land can only be used for grass production. Another thing to bear in mind is that far greater amounts of Carbon are sequestered in soil under grazing than any other land use away from the equator. Purely arable, especially when you don't use muck to fertilise the crop reduces soil carbon content as opposed to building it. Planting trees to sequester Carbon seems to be the flavour of the month, but at best it is only Carbon neutral (if and only if the wood is never burnt/ rotted ~ definitely not send to Drax!). So for all these reasons, anything that makes sheep farming even harder is not in my opinion a good idea.
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
of course, what is the normal view in a university environmental department would be very different to the usual view of people who attend the local mart, so maybe it is not even considered that there could be other opinions. I have a friend who is a lecturer in a psychology department in a uni, and she dare not even mention that she voted Brexit!Tis a better man that admits error or ignorance with hindsight, than one who refuses to see
Moors Farmer
Member
- Location
- Somerset
Are these lynx critters likely to eat badgers? Asking for a friend........
- Location
- DD9.
Student + college + bank holiday weekend = about 2 weeks off probably
Good on you for coming back to engage. I’m glad you’ve realised your assumptions weren’t actually sound now, so fair play. Although it’s worrying that you’re surprised by the reactions on here. It’s disturbing for many of us on here that there is so much "information" and opinion that is being put out there as accepted fact that is being based on assumptions that don’t cope with the first sign of a question or resistance. The public at large are constantly being battered over the head with the plant-based is better for the planet message for instance, but this is largely based on misinformation or outright lies, the message mainly coming from huge food processing companies who want to take everyone’s money from them and have no interest in people actually eating real food (not even plant-based real food) because there’s no profit in it for them. That’s where the message is coming from.
Livestock farmers will be at the sharp end of this rewilding nonsense and will suffer in various ways if it gains traction. The people keen on it will be in no way affected no matter how much they discuss it among their circle of friends. I’m sure you could discuss fishing quotas in your university common room and get people’s opinions on it, but if you venture down to the docks you will meet reality and some strong opinions there from the people at the sharp end. Why is it right that people who won’t be affected by their romantic/daft ideas get to impose them on the people who will be? How on Earth have we come to this?
- Location
- Essex
Well, if they can manage a row deer, you would hope so.
ollie989898
Member
The problem with these reintroductions is that no one can model how they will behave once it is done. Any kind of predator, will always look for the easiest route for survival and as you will find in North America, often that means pillaging livestock, eating carrion, or worse, taking up residence near man and scavenging from rubbish or preying on household pets.
Farmers have a duty to protect their livestock from predation and I do not believe it is morally acceptable for farmers to permit any kind of 'acceptable threshold' of losses merely to allow a now foreign species to get by.
Farmers have a duty to protect their livestock from predation and I do not believe it is morally acceptable for farmers to permit any kind of 'acceptable threshold' of losses merely to allow a now foreign species to get by.
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
I don't believe in the phrase 'acceptable losses', not in my lambing shed and not in my fields. As I stated if wildcats were an issue as a resident predator I would revise my system, keep lambs in for longer, perhaps run a hot wire round the outside of my fields but that would be the price for co-existing with a predator here before I was. Lynx would be a different order of magnitude, they will kill far larger lambs, scale larger fences and are much more dynamic predators meaning that the defences would have to be significantly more involved and considerably more costly. I have the luxury of lambing inside, having indoor space for all lambs born and having a small area that can be intensively managed. Anything beyond my scale would be rendered completely uneconomic to protect from lynx.
As has already been amply demonstrated, sea-eagle introduction has rendered outdoor lambing of long established hill breeds nigh on impossible in some locations. No-one affected by the losses has been adequately recompensed and the government staunchly refuses to accept it as an issue.
Beavers made an illegal appearance, no-one licensed to own them in captivity was questioned, no-one was prosecuted, then they got protection. Landowners and owners of riparian/angling rights have no redress and no-one considers the damming of salmon rivers of any consequence despite salmon being in grave decline because fish are wet and slimy and beavers appeared in an American cartoon.
Lynx could not be expected to search for deer fawns/calves when the hills have white lambs bumbling around after ewes in plain sight. In woodland the lynx wouldn't waste time searching for scentless fawns when there are lambing fields full of ewes giving birthing bleats, scents of blood and afterbirths around. Aversion therapy could be taught to first generation lynx release candidates but that won't last beyond a breeding season or two. Sooner or later they will relearn how to hunt the visible, slow, defenceless lambs. Continental Europe where lynx roam does not have the same conditions as Great Britain, our flocks are much larger, prey is much more concentrated, frequently free roaming on unfenced hills that are privately owned and much more vulnerable.
Facebook has become full of Western European pictures of sheep, calves and foals killed by introduced, protected wolves over the last few years, public attitudes are changing very quickly. One picture of a pregnant pet Swiss black nose ewe or dinky donkey foal killed by a lynx introduced by someone with grand ideas and no vested interest could, would and should scupper the plan.
As has already been amply demonstrated, sea-eagle introduction has rendered outdoor lambing of long established hill breeds nigh on impossible in some locations. No-one affected by the losses has been adequately recompensed and the government staunchly refuses to accept it as an issue.
Beavers made an illegal appearance, no-one licensed to own them in captivity was questioned, no-one was prosecuted, then they got protection. Landowners and owners of riparian/angling rights have no redress and no-one considers the damming of salmon rivers of any consequence despite salmon being in grave decline because fish are wet and slimy and beavers appeared in an American cartoon.
Lynx could not be expected to search for deer fawns/calves when the hills have white lambs bumbling around after ewes in plain sight. In woodland the lynx wouldn't waste time searching for scentless fawns when there are lambing fields full of ewes giving birthing bleats, scents of blood and afterbirths around. Aversion therapy could be taught to first generation lynx release candidates but that won't last beyond a breeding season or two. Sooner or later they will relearn how to hunt the visible, slow, defenceless lambs. Continental Europe where lynx roam does not have the same conditions as Great Britain, our flocks are much larger, prey is much more concentrated, frequently free roaming on unfenced hills that are privately owned and much more vulnerable.
Facebook has become full of Western European pictures of sheep, calves and foals killed by introduced, protected wolves over the last few years, public attitudes are changing very quickly. One picture of a pregnant pet Swiss black nose ewe or dinky donkey foal killed by a lynx introduced by someone with grand ideas and no vested interest could, would and should scupper the plan.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
I agree absolutely with longlowdog's sentiments -- except his assumption that lynx will only be killing lambs. Any predator that will regularly take roe deer (and there are videos on Youtube proving that they do) will have no trouble killing a full grown sheep. I have witnessed an adult NCCheviot tup and several ewes killed by foxes as I have described on here before. Predators will attack extraordinary prey when prompted by cold and hunger rather than starve, even more so when pregnant or feeding young.
- Location
- Essex
Aren't lynx woodland hunters or have I got that wrong?
All in fav
In the news this passed week.
UK domestic cats are estimated to be directly responsible for a quite incredible 270,000,000 (yes 270 million) wildlife deaths from birds to mammals per year
In the news this passed week.
UK domestic cats are estimated to be directly responsible for a quite incredible 270,000,000 (yes 270 million) wildlife deaths from birds to mammals per year