Proposals to return lynx to Britain were launched last week. Up to 24 of the elusive, biggish cats could be released in Norfolk, Cumbria, Northumberland and Aberdeenshire, with reports claiming that the predator, wiped out 1,300 years ago, might be stalking deer through woodlands by the end of the year.
I’d love to see lynx in Norfolk because it would turn the clock back to 1990, not 715AD. When I was growing up, a lynx named the Beast of Booton roamed our neighbourhood. It had almost certainly escaped a local wildlife park and eventually turned up, dead, in a gamekeeper’s freezer.
Rewilding – returning habitats to a “natural” state – is the most exciting conservation movement for a generation, but exponents can get carried away. Top predators are not easily returned to the British countryside because we have no memory of living alongside them and still believe we must make money from every spare patch of ground.
I was in the Scottish Highlands last week admiring our current top predator, the white-tailed eagle, which was restored here 40 years ago after being shot to extinction in 1918. This reintroduction has been a triumph – there are now 100 nesting pairs and Mull’s economy has been reinvigorated by eagle tourism – yet there is still serious conflict, with farmers opposed to the birds, which are implicated in lamb deaths each year.
The Lynx UK Trust cites polls showing overwhelming support for reintroduction, but the ongoing struggle over the awesome eagles shows that consent is hard won. Rewilders can try to swerve the fate of most radical conservation projects – death by stakeholder meeting – by getting aristocratic backing (in Norfolk, eight landowners own more than 10,000 acres each but support for lynx from these big estates has been conspicuously absent) or, preferably, painstakingly building popular local support. This hasn’t yet been done.
Finally, Natural England must license each reintroduction, and its grumpy response to the lynx idea suggests that won’t happen anytime soon.
Real rewilding is a human affair. On Mull, grudging consent is maintained by David Sexton, an inspiring man employed by the RSPB who spends every day working with farmers to manage problems caused by the eagles. Lynx will need similar local champions before they can live alongside us.
Cute won’t always finish first
Polls close on 7 May and the frontrunner is a mellifluous-voiced and rather shiny figure. Its red rival is fighting for a majority too, and there is something of the night about their biggest threat. Yes, the race to become Britain’s national bird is an engaging affair, with 113,000 votes already cast. The blackbird leads opinion polls, followed by the robin and barn owl. I voted hen harrier, our most persecuted bird, but late voters’ hearts may be melted by organiser David Lindo’s revelation that the puffin is currently in last place. A lesson for lamb-cuddling, child-carrying David Cameron: cute doesn’t always finish first.
Edstone: the naked truth
Saturday was World Naked Gardening day, or WNGD as it is known among its (possibly fictional) practitioners. I was digging over my newly acquired garden that day, respectably attired, when I unearthed an unexpected find: a large pink sex toy. This raises unanswerable questions about the previous users of my garden (most obviously, why not place an unwanted plastic penis in the wheelie bin?), which show how creative archaeologists must be. The Edstone has been the most memorable moment of the election campaign and the best interpreter of Labour’s Old Testament-style pledge card will be the No 10 robo-gardener who uncovers it in 3000AD. Whether WNGD will still be a thing then is anyone’s guess.
