NFU argument against reintroducing the lynx amounts to fake news

IN his letter against the proposed reintroduction of the lynx to Scotland Martin Kennedy of NFU Scotland (Letters, August 10), suggests we focus on facts rather than rhetoric, only to produce a literary diatribe worthy of Mr Trump’s fakest of fake news.

To quote from the Norwegian “experience” is way off the mark, since there they do not use fences to keep hill sheep together and many walk off never to be seen again

– fate unknown.

The Norwegian compensation claims, which rely on no evidence other than the sheep farmers’ word, would be the envy of their Scottish counterparts and probably would bankrupt this country. Similarly, the claimed predation percentages by other animals than Lynx are based on nothing more than hearsay.

The “absolute catastrophe” that Mr Kennedy imagines should perhaps be applied to his own “industry” where more than six million sheep are left to graze the Scottish landscape, causing immeasurable damage to native vegetation and erosion to hillsides and river banks. To be supported by Fergus Ewing, a well-established anti-wildlife enthusiast, speaks volumes, having already made his mind up in advance without, perhaps typically, understanding any of the relevant issues involved in the Norwegian situation or indeed the re-introduction process of former native animals in the UK.

My only concern is that the lynx may be in direct competition with the Scottish wildcat, a species Mr Ewing’s government has hastened to destruction. The lynx, being a more distant extinction in Scotland to the grey wolf, means the re-introduction of the wolf surely deserves precedence?

Bernard Zonfrillo,

28 Brodie Road,

Glasgow.

MARTIN KENNEDY of NFU Scotland suggests we focus on facts rather than rhetoric, then claims that predation of sheep in Norway has fallen because “hill farmers have simply stopped keeping sheep”.

So I did some fact checking. Norway’s agricultural census found 232,400 sheep in 2000 and 230,830 sheep in 2010. Norway’s sheep farmers haven’t stopped keeping sheep.

In 2015, a study funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Environmental Agency found that the percentage of animals claimed as lost and confirmed to have been killed by large predators was low, especially for sheep claimed as killed by Eurasian lynx.

The same report suggested that where lynx are present, making sheep graze in open rather than forested areas could reduce losses (it is common practice in Norway to graze sheep in woodland). Unfortunately forest and woodland currently covers only about 18 per cent of Scotland, compared to 38 per cent of Norway. Scottish sheep already graze in the open.

Mr Kennedy’s claim that reintroducing predators into our country would be an absolute catastrophe isn’t focussing on facts, nor is it rhetoric, it is complete hyperbole.

Colin Mackenzie,

172 Wilton Street,

Glasgow.