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Lynx reintroduction rejected


henry d
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2 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

So...it was in a pen? with probably minimal cover (so the visitors can see the animals, avoiding Jurassic Park mistakes), and had people staring at it in the eyes all day, every day?

You take a shy, secretive animal and deprive it of its two innate defence mechanisms of running and hiding and then stare at it.

The problem with even the best of wildlife parks is that they are driven by visitor numbers and visitors want to see stuff - not just walk past dense vegetation with a sign that says what you might catch a glimpse of - if you're lucky!

That works fine for prey animals for whom the fence provides protection from stuff, or stuff like tigers that are top of the food chain whatever environment they're in, but smaller, more secretive predatory animals don't take to it so well. They can still be prey to bigger, more abundant predators, but are deprived of their most effective way of combating them.

 

Or you just looked at it in a funny tone of voice ;) 

 

1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

How would you feel, arbitary thrown in a cell with no distance to hide, a lot of big monkeys staring at you every day making threatening guestures (smiling showing teeth, pointing, staring flapping arms about etc), I am quite sure you would occaisionally show some attempt at expressing your displeasure.

But we we are not discussing the morals of keeping wild animals in captivity, or the psychological effect it may have on them! We were discussing the introduction of a large carnivore into the UK.......I gave an example of a Lynx attempting to attack me, why didn't it attack others gauping at it? There must have been hundreds of people walking past it! Perhaps it just didn't like "the cut of my jib" ......all I know, from personal experience is, that under certain circumstances a Lynx will attack a fully grown human.....so what if it liked the look of food, in the form of a 3ft tall child! Or a lamb, or poultry, or heaven forbid a Hen Harrier?

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2 hours ago, panoma1 said:

 

But we we are not discussing the morals of keeping wild animals in captivity, or the psychological effect it may have on them! We were discussing the introduction of a large carnivore into the UK.......I gave an example of a Lynx attempting to attack me, why didn't it attack others gauping at it? There must have been hundreds of people walking past it! Perhaps it just didn't like "the cut of my jib" ......all I know, from personal experience is, that under certain circumstances a Lynx will attack a fully grown human.....so what if it liked the look of food, in the form of a 3ft tall child! Or a lamb, or poultry, or heaven forbid a Hen Harrier?

You kind of should be though, because you're using a captive animal in a completely non-wild scenario to make judgements on wild behaviour. You're saying this is how one lynx behaved in captivity, therefore this is how lynx could behave in the wild, which isn't realistic. Instead it'd make more sense to look at lynx-human interaction in the wild. And there are no reported cases of wild Eurasian lynx* attacking humans - 3ft tall or otherwise (i'm going to exclude the case in Slovenia where a woman was attacked by one with Rabies - not an issue in the UK). Given that, there is no argument from a human safety, the NFU went a bit nuts with that, but it is completely unfounded. 

Would this be the 3ft tall child, that's roaming around the woods at night, pretending to be a deer, well away from human settlements and isn't with its parents? It had it coming.

I'm not saying by any means that there aren't legitimate concerns with releasing lynx, because there clearly are. But none of those legitimate ones have anything to do with public safety. If we could get beyond being scared of things that don't happen, we'd probably be in a better position all round.

38 minutes ago, loriusgarrulus said:

When a lynx got out at Borth they didn't think it wasn't a danger. They shot it.

They did and copped a fair amount of flack for it! Again they cited public safety, but not even the public bought that argument. It shouldn't have been shot, although there was close 'one eye, screw the other up' logic to it: this wasn't a wild animal with an innate fear of humans; human contact was much more likely and it had no developed hunting skills, so food in the form of sheep was just an easy meal. Wild lynx behave very differently. Human aversion is pretty obvious and, whilst livestock fatalities do happen, evidence from Scandinavia suggests it's a) a lot less than expected and b) in areas where there's been a serious shortage of all other natural prey animals. Livestock attacks are a serious cause for concern, but not necessarily insurmountable the available data suggest it's possible to prevent and mitigate against them. 

 

 *There are several reports of bobcats (not the Eurasian Lynx) in North America attacking people. But like the case from Slovenia, in a lot of them Rabies was proved to be a factor.

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The correct decision I think. We are a small heavily populated island with species disappearing as we speak so surely our efforts should be directed to keeping what we have? Re-wilding is a romantic dream but with the world population doubling to over 7.6bn in the last 40 years we will lose many many more species and plants so where should our priority be?

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20 minutes ago, oowee said:

Is that a lynx? Smaller than I thought. Panoma you were safe after all :lol: Lucky it did not get go through the mesh. 

Truth to tell, the speed and power it hit the fence, I'm surprised it didn't turn itself "cartoon style" into extruded pieces...... bloody well made me jump anyway! 😳

 

37 minutes ago, loriusgarrulus said:

When a lynx got out at Borth they didn't think it wasn't a danger. They shot it.

Well it certainly wasn't a danger after!.......... I remember discussing the escape at the time! It was very close to our fowling grounds!

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When I saw that tiger at Howletts it was late in the day and they were feeding the wolves so dusk and lots of howling. The tiger launched itself across a small pond and roared as it hit the fence arms outstretched and I do not mind admitting that we all let out a yell. The kid and his dad soiled themselves it was scary stuff. I still say that fence was not big enough. 

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1 minute ago, oowee said:

When I saw that tiger at Howletts it was late in the day and they were feeding the wolves so dusk and lots of howling. The tiger launched itself across a small pond and roared as it hit the fence arms outstretched and I do not mind admitting that we all let out a yell. The kid and his dad soiled themselves it was scary stuff. I still say that fence was not big enough. 

There is no animal in captivity that I'd trust less than a tiger. I'd rather spend my day doing paperwork in an office with no windows than doing anything in a tiger enclosure. 

 

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5 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

There is no animal in captivity that I'd trust less than a tiger. I'd rather spend my day doing paperwork in an office with no windows than doing anything in a tiger enclosure. 

 

I used to do a lot of work with Woburn safari park and got to open up and feed the animals in the morning. My kids and I had to put out some donkey for the lions then open the cages. We had the windows down on the landy and reached an arm out to undo the catch of their pen and out they came.

When we got to the tigers we had to use a stick through a small gap in the top of the glass 😞 to let them out into the enclosure. Very scary things. 

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15 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

You kind of should be though, because you're using a captive animal in a completely non-wild scenario to make judgements on wild behaviour. You're saying this is how one lynx behaved in captivity, therefore this is how lynx could behave in the wild, which isn't realistic. Instead it'd make more sense to look at lynx-human interaction in the wild. And there are no reported cases of wild Eurasian lynx* attacking humans - 3ft tall or otherwise (i'm going to exclude the case in Slovenia where a woman was attacked by one with Rabies - not an issue in the UK). Given that, there is no argument from a human safety, the NFU went a bit nuts with that, but it is completely unfounded. 

Would this be the 3ft tall child, that's roaming around the woods at night, pretending to be a deer, well away from human settlements and isn't with its parents? It had it coming.

I'm not saying by any means that there aren't legitimate concerns with releasing lynx, because there clearly are. But none of those legitimate ones have anything to do with public safety. If we could get beyond being scared of things that don't happen, we'd probably be in a better position all round.

They did and copped a fair amount of flack for it! Again they cited public safety, but not even the public bought that argument. It shouldn't have been shot, although there was close 'one eye, screw the other up' logic to it: this wasn't a wild animal with an innate fear of humans; human contact was much more likely and it had no developed hunting skills, so food in the form of sheep was just an easy meal. Wild lynx behave very differently. Human aversion is pretty obvious and, whilst livestock fatalities do happen, evidence from Scandinavia suggests it's a) a lot less than expected and b) in areas where there's been a serious shortage of all other natural prey animals. Livestock attacks are a serious cause for concern, but not necessarily insurmountable the available data suggest it's possible to prevent and mitigate against them. 

 

 *There are several reports of bobcats (not the Eurasian Lynx) in North America attacking people. But like the case from Slovenia, in a lot of them Rabies was proved to be a factor.

No I'm not, I realise there may be behavioural differences between wild and captive animals........all I claimed was that "under certain circumstances" Lynx will attack a human..........and they will certainly take endangered wildlife, domestic and farmed livestock! It's all food, I doubt they will be too selective! ........OK for those who don't own and/or their livelihoods don't depend on said stock I guess!

Your comment regarding a 3ft child "had it coming" is crass in the extreme! What about a child wandering away from his/her parents and getting lost, as darkness falls, would he/her "have it coming" if a big cat decides its vulnerable, looks like prey and smells like food?

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33 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

There is no animal in captivity that I'd trust less than a tiger. I'd rather spend my day doing paperwork in an office with no windows than doing anything in a tiger enclosure. 

 

Leopards are possibly more dangerous aparently but back on topic, the right decision IMO?

If a dangerous animal licence isneeded to keep one in in captivity how come it could be ok to release a bunch into the wild? Nuts in my estimation.

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1 minute ago, panoma1 said:

No I'm not, I realise there may be behavioural differences between wild and captive animals........all I claimed was that "under certain circumstances" Lynx will attack a human..........and they will certainly take endangered wildlife, domestic and farmed livestock! It's all food, I doubt they will be too selective! ........OK for those who don't own and/or their livelihoods don't depend on said stock I guess!

Your comment regarding a 3ft child "had it coming" is crass in the extreme! What about a child wandering away from his/her parents and getting lost, as darkness falls, would he/her "have it coming" if a big cat decides its vulnerable, looks like prey and smells like food?

You'd be surprised. No, really, you would. Lynx are a curious species and show clear prey specificity - even when their particular prey choice is low in density they still actively seek it out. It also seems to go with geography. For example, Scandi lynx still go for Roe deer even if numbers are low, and the small Swiss population prefer chamois. But as I've said, farmer-lynx conflict should be looked at in far more detail than LynxUK ever seemed prepared to do. Their argument seemed to always boil down to 'oh we don't think that'll happen' and 'well, we can perhaps talk about reimbursing, if it came to it' which was sort of missing the point. 

My point is that there is no credible public safety concern, which is why I put the child pretending to be a deer so crassly. But on the subject of children wandering off. You think children haven't wandered off in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Slovenia, Turkey, Belarus, Georgia, Russia etc...? yet not a single report of one being attacked by a lynx. 

As I've said before there are legitimate concerns over releasing lynx. but safety isn't one of them. There's not a shred of evidence - scientific or anecdotal - that shows lynx pose a genuine threat to human (child or adult) safety.  And I'd rather something was stopped for the right reasons, not misguided ones. 

5 minutes ago, old man said:

Leopards are possibly more dangerous aparently but back on topic, the right decision IMO?

If a dangerous animal licence isneeded to keep one in in captivity how come it could be ok to release a bunch into the wild? Nuts in my estimation.

 

I've done a bit of work with captive leopards. I'd still take them over tigers, any day of the week! I find a leopard's body language a little easier to assess, but tigers seem to have far fewer visual indicators as to what's going on in their heads, 

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Lynx in the wild are only a danger to prey (not humans) and each other.

Generally they see a human coming they immediately go to ground or in opposite direction.

As has been noted above, there are no recorded instances of a wild lynx in the open attacking and killing a human or of wild lynx attacking humans at all unless cornered and provoked (whether caught in a trap etc).

The only concern people (farmers of all sizes from part time crofters to agribusiness) have (as with wolves) is of livestock protection (and to a more limited extent game protection) and their feelings that they cannot and will not change their management system (ranching sheep in the uplands especially) by introducing other measures such as proper traditional shepherding (i.e. who wants to live out on the hill all year) or flock protection dogs as used in areas of Europe with wolves and lynx (Who wants to go up the hill and feed the dog every day) when all they do is visit the flock once a week on the quad.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is not hunters who generally exterminate species (as in order to hunt them, they have to be present and maintaining a breeding population) but farmers who wish to protect their livestock or crops by eliminating any competition.

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My concern is not about attacks on humans but the devastation the animal could do to our already threatened wildlife.  I believe even to think about releasing lynx or wolves let alone bears into the UK countryside is totally crazy and anyone suggesting such should be on medication.   I have seen the resulting damage the wolves have done having been released into Slovenia.

I have witnessed the hunting and killing ability of the smaller lymx the bobcat and seen one of those pull down and kill a goat. They are prime hunters without doubt.  We have enough wildlife in the countryside already we should be concentrating on preserving that.

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9 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

You'd be surprised. No, really, you would. Lynx are a curious species and show clear prey specificity - even when their particular prey choice is low in density they still actively seek it out. It also seems to go with geography. For example, Scandi lynx still go for Roe deer even if numbers are low, and the small Swiss population prefer chamois. But as I've said, farmer-lynx conflict should be looked at in far more detail than LynxUK ever seemed prepared to do. Their argument seemed to always boil down to 'oh we don't think that'll happen' and 'well, we can perhaps talk about reimbursing, if it came to it' which was sort of missing the point. 

My point is that there is no credible public safety concern, which is why I put the child pretending to be a deer so crassly. But on the subject of children wandering off. You think children haven't wandered off in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Slovenia, Turkey, Belarus, Georgia, Russia etc...? yet not a single report of one being attacked by a lynx. 

As I've said before there are legitimate concerns over releasing lynx. but safety isn't one of them. There's not a shred of evidence - scientific or anecdotal - that shows lynx pose a genuine threat to human (child or adult) safety.  And I'd rather something was stopped for the right reasons, not misguided ones. 

 

I've done a bit of work with captive leopards. I'd still take them over tigers, any day of the week! I find a leopard's body language a little easier to assess, but tigers seem to have far fewer visual indicators as to what's going on in their heads, 

A couple of questions...1) what would the preferred prey be for a Lynx plucked from wherever and dumped in the Kielder forest?

2) What would a hungry or injured Lynx, who's hunting ability is perhaps compromised by age or injury, find to eat?....for a large carnivore...... I suggest the answer is 'anything it could kill, which contains meat"

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19 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

...For example, Scandi lynx still go for Roe deer...

I think this was the reasoning behind them wanting to release them in the (general) Keilder area as the stalking is tough due to the woodland and open areas and wandering people. I`d still probably need my brown trousers if I bumped into one, same as if I bumped into a boar, they are unknowns to me

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4 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

My concern is not about attacks on humans but the devastation the animal could do to our already threatened wildlife.  I believe even to think about releasing lynx or wolves let alone bears into the UK countryside is totally crazy and anyone suggesting such should be on medication.   I have seen the resulting damage the wolves have done having been released into Slovenia.

I have witnessed the hunting and killing ability of the smaller lymx the bobcat and seen one of those pull down and kill a goat. They are prime hunters without doubt.  We have enough wildlife in the countryside already we should be concentrating on preserving that.

The Lynx is our threatened wildlife which we had failed, along with Bears, wolves, Elk, Eagle owl, etc. They did exist here and they currently exist in other countries with livestock, it is just a lack of our cultures ability to tolerate other interests which keeps them being rejected time after time.

Wolves in Scotland (whilst liking the tasty woolly things where easily available) would also stay away from human contact and concentrate mainly on the every increasing number of deer which are in areas out of control.

Pick up a copy of 'Where the Wild Things Were' and the 'Wolfs Tooth', both of which look at the reintroduction of wolves and the predator prey/habitat interactions and understand that wolves (and other apex predators) by changing the habits of their prey (deer etc) also have large changes on the habitats, allowing native forest to regenerate for instance.

 

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5 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

A couple of questions...1) what would the preferred prey be for a Lynx plucked from wherever and dumped in the Kielder forest?

2) What would a hungry or injured Lynx, who's hunting ability is perhaps compromised by age or injury, find to eat?....for a large carnivore...... I suggest the answer is 'anything it could kill, which contains meat"

1) Mountain Hare, Roe, Sheep, Sika, red most likely in that order

2) probably starve to death like any other carnivore if it can't survive by scavenging until it recovers or dies, or uneducated prey (it doesn't take long to educate a flock of sheep as where I live the local sheep ignore my spaniel but head for the hills when they see a strange dog) - human certainly wouldn't be on the menu as we do not act like prey but as another predator.

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1 minute ago, Stonepark said:

1) Mountain Hare, Roe, Sheep, Sika, red most likely in that order

2) probably starve to death like any other carnivore if it can't survive by scavenging until it recovers or dies, or uneducated prey (it doesn't take long to educate a flock of sheep as where I live the local sheep ignore my spaniel but head for the hills when they see a strange dog) - human certainly wouldn't be on the menu as we do not act like prey but as another predator.

Every days a school day! I didn't know mountain hares are present in the Kielder forest? And if Lynx can pull down and kill a red deer they must be pretty powerful, formidable predators........but all this is speculation, we just don't know....and we should know, before we even contemplate releasing an ace predator into the UK.

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1 minute ago, panoma1 said:

A couple of questions...1) what would the preferred prey be for a Lynx plucked from wherever and dumped in the Kielder forest?

2) What would a hungry or injured Lynx, who's hunting ability is perhaps compromised by age or injury, find to eat?....for a large carnivore...... I suggest the answer is 'anything it could kill, which contains meat"

1) The current hope is to reintroduce lynx with wild animals taken from the Carpathian Mountains, as that's the largest contiguous population. Given that those lynx seem to to rely on red and roe for the majority of the diet, they do seem well suited. In their favour for this is their size. The Carpathian Lynx is one of the larger subspecies, so have the necessary power to take down our roes, reds, sikas etc. whilst steering them away from sheep, because they're not worth the effort for a small meal (dubious about that, but at least theoretically possible!) Weirdly, the goalposts seemed to have moved on that one! The initial plan was to take animals from Scandinavia, because their genetic makeup would be more similar to those that were in Britain pre-extinction, which is more in line with EU directives. Prey abundance in the Kielder Forest is meant to be pretty good (one of the reasons the site was earmarked), so the likelihood is that a small population of lynx would be easily sustained with a diet of deer. 

2) Hungry is unlikely given the bountiful natural prey opportunities, so then we're into injured/old age animals. You're right, they will be much less picky. But these animals will be in the tiny minority and won't inflict major or even noticeable losses on easier to catch prey types. Pheasant would be on the menu, rodents, and then livestock. But, just as they do in other countries with observable problem animals, that's the point they should be removed - and yes, I do mean shoot it. (one off license purchase perhaps?! they do it with rhinos and elephants in Namibia!) That should only happen if an animal is proved to be predating on livestock, but if there's evidence, that evidence needs to be accepted by LynxUK; they can't just bury their heads in the sand and look for mitigating circumstances to dodge the issue.

 

The trouble is it's all theoretical. It can't be proved one way or the other without field tests. Right now we've hit the point where nothing more can be done. IF LynxUK can get their act together a bit more with the long term ramifications of the plan, then I think it's worth a shot, so long as no farmers/locals lose finances over it. But as far as I can tell, there are a fair few holes in the plan, aside from their slightly flaky responses to farmers' concerns:

How will a population be sustained that is small enough to stay in remote areas, but large enough to be genetically viable?

Is it really worth the expense if we're constantly having to reintroduce in order to maintain a population?

What are the potential negative environmental impacts of releasing a new second tier predator in the area?

Why should funding be pumped into the lynx, rather than animals that aren't extinct yet and have a chance of being saved (Scottish Wildcat, for example)

How is it genuinely going to be a boost for the local economy, given that they're so ridiculously secretive that, in an ideal situation, you're properly unlikely to ever see one?

 

I'm still on the fence. I think it's probably worth a trial, but that trial would have to be a completely unequivocal success for it to warrant further releases and expansion. 

'Because it'd be so cool to have them running around Scotland' isn't really a good enough reason to keep it going...

 

8 minutes ago, Adrian Armsby said:

Personally I would be more worried about being attacked by badgers while out lamping rabbits than the chance of attacked by Felix 

Badgers shouldn't be allowed firearms.

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6 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

Every days a school day! I didn't know mountain hares are present in the Kielder forest? And if Lynx can pull down and kill a red deer they must be pretty powerful, formidable predators........but all this is speculation, we just don't know....and we should know, before we even contemplate releasing an ace predator into the UK.

Perhaps if I had just said brown hares living in the hills for Kielder but for Scotland/Peak district it would be mountain hare, but yes, a Lynx can pull down a red hind, especially if it was ill/old/starving, red fawns/immature animals are also available 6-9 months of the year but they could also probably manage a fully fit one, though I doubt they could get a mature fit stag.

 

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49 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

I've done a bit of work with captive leopards. I'd still take them over tigers, any day of the week! I find a leopard's body language a little easier to assess, but tigers seem to have far fewer visual indicators as to what's going on in their heads, 

very jealous, always amazes me the speed and power tigers have, from lay down to full tilt and covering distance like a racing car.

Here's one, everyone knows there have been big cats out in the countryside at some point, has one ever attacked a human? In this country?? 

31 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

Pick up a copy of 'Where the Wild Things Were' and the 'Wolfs Tooth', both of which look at the reintroduction of wolves and the predator prey/habitat interactions and understand that wolves (and other apex predators) by changing the habits of their prey (deer etc) also have large changes on the habitats, allowing native forest to regenerate for instance.

One of the programmes i watched showed the habitat changes after wolves were reintroduced and it was amazing, from flora regrowing because deer and elk couldn't graze at leisure to smaller mammals recovering because the wolves killed lots of coyotes 

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