Measured debate is needed on rewilding

Sir,

While Iain Thornber (‘Big predators for the Small Isles?’, The Oban Times, February 15) is perfectly entitled to his views on rewilding, he does the debate no service by introducing his piece with references to ‘wacky characters’ and ‘quirky schemes’, describing rewilding as ‘the latest fashionable wheeze’.

Whether or not it is a conservation strategy that is applicable or appropriate to Highland Scotland is a debate worth having, but talk of ‘freaks an follies’, ‘self-delusionists’ and wacky, absentee landowners is to polarise from the outset.

The removal of black rats (which Mr Thornber describes somewhat fondly as ‘rare’) from the Shiant Isles is an RSPB-led project to protect and restore populations of ground-nesting seabirds by eradicating an invasive, non-native species that consumes the eggs and chicks of native birds.

It follows similar, successful projects on Ailsa Craig, Ramsey and Lundy and is not, as Mr Thornber seems keen for us to believe, simply a scheme hatched by an old Etonian landlord to ‘ease £900,000’ from RSPB and SNH in pursuit of his personal passion for rewilding.

Mr Thornber writes emotively of the slaughter of hundreds of deer that he says will result from rewilding, but, as he knows, the killing of deer has been a fact of Highland life for a great many years, and culling is carried out by deer managers to prevent overgrazing and protect the welfare of the herd.

The Scottish National Deer Cull regularly claims more than 100,000 deer annually (SNH). Rewilding, as I understand it, would seek to strike a more natural balance between deer and forest. Certainly, talk of the ‘sacrifice’ of a deer that has ‘lived in the area for the past 10,000 years’ is deceptive and sensionalistic.

Mr Thornber’s characterisation of rewilding as ‘blanket woodland ... guarded by lynx, wolves and bears’ is to present an extreme scenario which, I believe, is the vision of few and has little chance of coming to fruition. It is certainly not something that will simply ‘slip through’.

Yet rewilding as a concept need not be scary as Mr Thornber paints it. An article in The Guardian (July 3, 2017) points to examples in coastal and riverine areas of the Netherlands and the restoration of saltmarsh, reedbed and insect-rich grassland in England.

In the Highlands, the concept might well be extended to include the reinstatement of larger, better-connected, more natural areas of habitat in which the already present pine martens, red squirrels, wildcats, beavers and capercaillie flourish. What is warranted is sober, measured debate, not sensationalism and a condescending tone. CS Whyte, Dunblane.