Lynx plan makes me wish our toothless wildlife agencies could be made extinct

Have you ever seen a lynx? I have – once, there were two of them, apparently asleep at the foot of a tree in a wildlife park on the edge of Cumbernauld. No, it’s not the first line of a joke, it actually happened.

I was making a radio programme, about 25 years ago, on the subject of Scotland’s lost mammals and how we might reintroduce them (I’ve been singing this song for a long, long time…) and the moment came back into my mind because I have just had the misfortune to read a press release about a new lynx reintroduction study by the Lynx to Scotland project.

The Cumbernauld park had a pair of lynxes and I went to see them and talk to their keeper. He explained that they didn’t do much at this time of the day. It was late morning, they are hunters of dusks and darkness and dawns. And true to form, there they were, asleep. Apparently.

A magpie landed in the top of the tree and began to descend, noisily, objecting to the presence of the lynxes. They ignored it, still sleeping. Apparently.

When the magpie was still about 10 feet up the tree, one of the lynxes, without taking the trouble to stand or stretch or otherwise indicate any awareness of the bird’s presence, sprang vertically upwards from a lying start, extended a foreleg and swung a claw at the bird, missing it by about two inches.

The lynx touched down again with featherweight grace, looked round, lay down, curled up, and went back to sleep. Apparently.

I don’t like zoos of any kind anywhere, any form of wildlife incarceration. A wild lynx travels alone, its territory can cover several hundred square miles. These had a handful of acres. But I acknowledge a moment of insight that day in Cumbernauld, a sliver of awareness of what lurks within.

Which brings me back to the press release about the new study. Everything that is wrong with Scotland’s professional wildlife conservation was on display in the press release. I quote a few snippets:

“There is sufficient appetite from a diverse cross-sector of rural stakeholders to examine whether potential barriers to a trial reintroduction of Eurasian lynx to Scotland can be overcome, says the first detailed study into the social feasibility of the species’ return…” Cross-sector?

“The Lynx to Scotland project spent a year consulting a wide range of national stakeholders and local communities in the Cairngorms National Park and Argyll… Among the wide-ranging views there was consensus for a participatory crossstakeholder approach to further explore the benefits and barriers to lynx reintroduction…”

Over the coming years, expect more stakeholder consultation and more consensus for participatory approaches to further split infinitives and mangle the English language.

Compare and contrast. Spain had a problem with their native Iberian lynx. It was down to a hundred or so animals in scattered pockets. Extinction beckoned. Spain’s national wildlife agency bought a serious piece of wild country, declared it a dedicated national park, rounded up all the lynxes and released them there, created a stronghold , watched the lynx population reach a thousand over 10 years and then start to disperse, naturally.

Likewise, they are now strengthening the wolf population in the north west of the country, safeguarding it and watching it prosper.

Lynx to Scotland is a partnership of three wildlife charities. None of them has statutory powers. Conservation in Scotland needs a dedicated wildlife agency that is properly funded and resourced, has the power to buy land to be owned by the nation and establish nature conservation as the top priority there, and ban the word “stakeholder” from the lips of every one of its employees. England and Wales also need such agencies for nature is indifferent to national borders.

Meanwhile, nature in Scotland gets dragged down and shackled by the same old rituals of Victorian land use, of gamekeepers and farmers who assume a moral authority over every species that gets in their way, and what passes for nature conservation wastes time and money and scunners their subscriptionpaying members on meaningless consultation studies couched in even more meaningless language.

Lynx reintroduction in the Highlands is a questionable exercise at best. Lynx to Scotland thinks there is enough habitat and prey in the Highlands for 400 lynxes. Good, because that will be more than enough to wipe out the tiny Scottish wildcat population once and for all. And many conservationists think the lynx is a good idea because it’s a significant predator and it’s not a wolf. And even though they know that wolf reintroduction is the only one that makes sense and should be the overwhelming priority of every conservationist in the land, they don’t entertain the idea because it’s too difficult.

Naturescot is their stakeholder-obsessed role model. It also constitutes one extinction that nature is desperate for, to be replaced by a pro-wildlife-at-all-costs agency, one that comes equipped not with an obsession for consultation exercises but with what you might call teeth and claws.

The lynx touched down again with featherweight grace

PAWS FOR THOUGHT: The lynx reintroduction project needs more consideration and a dedicated wildlife agency to run it.