Coyotes are making their way into urban NYC and now Britain is considering rewilding three private estates(no fences) with Lynx, last seen in the United Kingdom in AD700!..........The English and Scottish sites of.Norfolk, Cubria and Aberdeenshire would be the release zones with 4 to 6 Lynx introduced at each site...............While admirable, that this rewilding experiment might come to be, as we learned over this weekend, the Colorado Fish and Wildlife folks released 218 Lynx into their state knowing that there would be a 50% mortality of the released "cats"...........And even with this sizeable release number, it took 4 to 6 years for there to be evidence of a breeding population with kittens comng into the world in Colorado..............Many more than 4 to 6 Lynx need to put into the wild for there to be a chance for success across the pond

Read more

Wild lynx to return to Britain

 after 1,300 years

In one of the most ambitious 'rewilding' projects 

ever to take place in

 the UK, the large deer-eating felines could be 

introduced to three

 unfenced estates later this year

Known as the Keeper of Secrets, the elusive
 forest-dwelling creature has been extinct in Britain
 for over 1,300 years.

But now the wild lynx could roam the woods of England
 and Scotland once again, as part of the most ambitious
 “rewilding” project ever attempted in the UK.

If the Lynx UK Trust’s scheme is approved, the large cats,
 which prey on deer as well as rabbit and hare, will be
released onto three privately owned, unfenced estates in
 Norfolk, Cumbria and Aberdeenshire.

“The lynx is one of the most enigmatic, beautiful cats on the
 planet,” Dr Paul O’Donoghue, a scientific adviser to the trust
 said. “The British countryside is dying and lynx will bring it
 back to life.”

The Eurasian lynx is the largest lynx species, with powerful
 long legs, with large webbed and furred paws. Due to its
solitary and secretive nature, lynx does not present a threat
 to humans.

The trust has launched a public consultation to determine
public reaction to the plan, after which it will lodge a forma
l application with Natural England and Scottish Natural
 Heritage (SNH), the government agencies that license
 such releases.

If the plan is given the green light, four to six Eurasian
 lynx wearing GPS tracking collars would be released
 later this year at each of the sites, all of which are rich
 in deer and tree cover.

One of the chosen sites is near Norfolk’s Thetford Forest,
 one of England’s largest and wildest woodlands and the
 other is in Ennerdale, a remote Lake District valley.

^{In Germany, 14 lynx were reintroduced to a site in the Harz mountains in 2000}

Lynx could help control Britain’s population of more than
one million wild deer, which lack natural predators. Deer
 damage woodland by overgrazing and eat the eggs of
birds that nest on the ground or in low bushes.

Peter Watson of the Deer Initiative which campaigns for
the controlling deer in a sustainable way, welcomed the
experimental reintroduction of lynx, saying that introducing
 lynx could help solve this problem.

Tony Marmont, a businessman who owns Grumack Forest,
near Huntly in Aberdeenshire, told the Sunday Times that
 lynx will have an “extremely beneficial effect” on forest
ecosystems. He added that lynx would serve as
 “ambassadors for wider conservation projects”.

However, not everyone is as enthusiastic, as the economic
 impact of reintroducing large predators remains controversial.

Previous reintroduction plans have been opposed and
 sometimes blocked by farmers arguing that creatures
 such as lynx and birds of prey attack livestock and gamebirds.

The reintroduction of lynx may raise fears of attacks on
 sheep, although these are rare in areas such as Romania
 and Poland, where lynx live naturally and a subsidy
programme would be set up for farmers.

^{The economic impact of reintroducing large predators remains controversial}

The National Farmers’ Union is sceptical, with a spokesman
 for the organisation saying: “We would be concerned about
 the reintroduction due to its high cost and failure risk. We
believe budgets are better focused on developing existing
biodiversity.”

In Germany, 14 lynx were reintroduced to a site in the Harz
mountains in 2000 and have since bred and colonised other
 areas. Another reintroduction, in Switzerland in the 1990s,
 has also seen animals breed and spread.

Ron Macdonald, SNH’s policy director, said: “There are
 pluses and minuses to reintroducing any species. Lynx
 could help reduce deer numbers in Scottish woodlands but
 some land-use organisations have concerns about the
 impact of a reintroduction on livestock.
”