New plan to introduce a predator to Scotland after 1000 years will help save forests IT is the forgotten predator that disappeared from Scotland due to fur hunting and habitat loss over 1000 years ago. Since then the British countryside has been devoid of large carnivores and any memory of living alongside anything larger than a fox or badger has been lost with the brown bear and the wolf also now absent from the landscape. Now new plans have been revealed to reintroduce one predator to Scotland - the Eurasian lynx, which is considered the most suitable candidate for carnivore restoration in Britain.
Last modified on Wed 20 Jan 2021 23.37 EST
A consortium of conservationists that hopes to release wild lynx into the Scottish Highlands has launched a year-long study to see whether the public supports their reintroduction.
The study, part-funded by two billionaire Danish estate owners in the Highlands, Anders Povlsen and Lisbet Rausing, will test whether farmers, landowners and rural communities will agree to a pilot project in a remote area of Scotland.
The lynx, Europe’s largest native cat, became extinct in northern Britain more than 500 years ago through habitat loss, hunting and persecution, but proposals by other rewilding advocates to reintroduce the species into the UK have foundered.