1,300 years on, the lynx is set for a British comeback

A CHARITY has launched plans that would see wild lynx in the British countryside for the first time in more than 1,000 years. The Lynx UK Trust has submitted an application to Natural England to release six Eurasian lynxes in the Kielder Forest region of Northumberland. The cats would be released for a five-year trial period while equipped with movement-tracking collars. Dr Paul O’Donoghue, the chief scientific adviser on the project, said it is ‘potentially the first return of an extinct predator’ in the UK, after the British lynx was wiped out around 1,300 years ago by fur hunters. He said: ‘We’ve now reached a point where we feel every piece of research has been done ... The only way to move truly forward is with an intensively monitored trial.’ The lynx has been reintroduced in Germany, France and Switzerland, and there are now more than 10,000 in Europe. Natural England would have to approve the plan. However, Scottish authorities are also being consulted in case the cats cross the border, and Scotland’s environment secretary Roseanna Cunningham said there were ‘serious concerns’ about the proposals.