The Lynx effect...
COULD THE WILD CAT BE HERE IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS?
WILD lynx could be roaming our countryside by the end of the year, campaigners have said.
The Lynx UK Trust wants to bring six of the cats from Sweden to Northumberland’s Kielder Forest, following a two-year consultation.
The trust said the plans to reintroduce the animal in the UK - some 1,300 years after they became extinct - would go to Natural England by September.
Kielder Forest was chosen due to its size, few roads and abundance of deer - lynx’s favourite prey.
But the proposal met with opposition from sheep farmers, who claim their livestock would be at risk.
The trust said: “In many other countries Eurasian lynx reintroduction has proven exceptionally low-conflict and wonderfully beneficial for the communities that live alongside them.
“We do sincerely hope that these cats, which thrived here for millions of years, do have the opportunity to prove they can still fit into both our ecology, and alongside local communities like those across the Kielder region.”
The scheme would see six lynx, four females and two males, being fitted with tracking collars and then released.
No date has been set for the proposal but the trust said it could be by the end of the year.
Paul O’Donoghue, the trust’s chief scientific adviser, said the lynx “belongs here” and is an “intrinsic part of the UK”. But the National Sheep Association claims stock belonging to hundreds of farmers around Kielder could be at risk.
The National Farmers’ Union Northumberland branch also criticised the reintroduction programme, saying it would “not only be expensive but have a high risk of failure”.
The last British lynx, closely related to the north European lynx, disappeared around 700 AD - most likely due to hunting and deforestation.
The cat varies in size from 80cm to 130cm in length and can weigh between 10kg and 40kg.
There were only around 700 of the medium-sized animals left across Europe by the 1940s.
Following reintroduction programmes, the population grew to around 10,000 in countries like Germany, France and Switzerland.