Lynx plans to go ahead despite sheep savaging

Claims made yesterday that a Lynx which escaped from a zoo in Wales a week ago was responsible for the deaths of seven sheep will not alter plans for a pilot release of wild animals in the Kielder Forest area, the organisation behind the application has claimed.

And the Lynx UK Trust revealed that far from backtracking on releasing these big cats into the countryside, they were set to launch a new consultation for a second release site in the Argyll/inverness area of Scotland.

However, the chairman of the Scottish region of the National Sheep Association (NSA), John Fyall, said that his organisation would comment on the proposals for a second release once a full environmental impact assessment had been drawn up by the group – and a credible consultation backed by the major wildlife charities had been started:

He said: “With the sheep industry currently facing so many challenges on so many fronts, not the least of which is Brexit, the antics of this group act as a considerable distraction from our core efforts.”

Earlier, NSA headquarters in England had moved to alert people to the deaths

0 Kielder Forest could become home to lynx of sheep in the area where an escaped Eurasian Lynx had been seen – after investigations carried out by Welsh Government officials had confirmed that they had died as a result of a single bite to the neck and internal bleeding.

The association said it understood that two sheep were partly eaten, while the remaining five appeared to be killed purely out of instinct, “just as a domestic cat might do with prey such as mice” said Phil Stocker, NSA chief executive.

He added: “There cannot be a clearer warning of the damage lynx will do if they are released into the wild. And at a time when Lynx UK Trust’s application to release lynx into Kielder Forest, Northumberland is under review from Natural England, it could not be more timely.”

Despite claims from the wildlife park which had lost the Lynx that the animal had not been responsible for the attacks, Stocker said that claims Lynx would only kill an average of 0.4 sheep a year now looked hollow.

However, far from seeing the news as a setback, the Lynx UK Trust said that it had no bearing on their proposals to seek a pilot release in the Kielder Forest, claiming that as the escaped animal had been bred in captivity its behaviour was not that of a wild animal.