Countryfile

As for high lynx populations, their territories are 100 - 1,000km2, ie very low density and highly territorial. If numbers become a problem then issue a licence and let someone pay to cull.

So central belt of Scotland - taking the smallest area possible 50km long x 10km wide equates to 5 animals.
how many are required for a self sustaining population?

Ed
 
So central belt of Scotland - taking the smallest area possible 50km long x 10km wide equates to 5 animals.how many are required for a self sustaining population?Ed
except that after the first year there will be another 12 approx, same again the next 2 years (now we are up to 41) then the population will increase by 36 that year then 60 the next...... (5 years time, 137 lynx spread right across the country and 6850 dead roe that year) :)

apologies if my maths is out!
 
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137 lynx spread right across the country and 6850 dead roe that year

137? Is that all? Can't be a problem - after all, 'They' will issue a licence to control them. Unfortunately, as we all know 'They' wont issue a licence, or only in-extremis, or only after a landowner has demonstrated significant financial loss during a month with a Z in it, just so long as their inside leg measurement doesn't exceed 28 inches blah, blah, blah. If anyone thinks that a licence to cull reintroduced Lynx would be issued before the crack of doom, I'm afraid you are seriously deluded.
 
Sightings would be common place - these moggies would be tagged, cameras on their dens, and trails etc - it would be a feline big brother house . . . . unless release was done like muntjac.

137 lynx, is assuming some fecundity. Despite the recent afforestation in the central belt, the M8, Glasgow, Cumbernauld, Airdrie, Bathgate, Livingston, Edinburugh ect conurbations would rule that area out.

As for self sustaining population, The Vosages population started at 5 nearly 35 years ago and there are about 25 now. They go up from there in other places.

There is plenty of evidence of positive agri-environment funding being used to give financial support to those impacted by species restoration programmes from UK an Europe. Losses to local economies are often more than offset by increased tourism revenue.
 
No mention of sheep because Lynx very rarely take them as they are woodland creatures, if sheep are in the forests . . . They shouldn't be there.

Lynx have always been in Finland, they are not recent, the Fin government support population management through licences. This is appropriate. Some hunters will pay big bucks to hunt lynx, not my bag though. It rains and snows here and I struggle with my cull sometimes, never mind. There is plenty of room in parts of the UK for Lynx. Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria are highly populated advanced European societies and they are pro lynx.

There have been no cases of lynx taking a human, don't panic.

What a load of pxsh, I spend 4 months every year shearing sheep in Norway ,traditionally sheep have been sent to the forest/ mountains for the summer months to forage , many farmers are unable to carry out this practice due to predation from wolf bear lynx in the forest and wolverine and eagle on the higher ground ,although wolverine are being found on lower ground in some areas due to easy pickings ie sheep. Predators by nature will take the easy option , why waste a lot of energy chasing a deer when they can catch a sheep with ease???. A very close friend of mine returned home to find a female and her 2 offspring eating an 80 kg ewe she had killed in a field in front of his house , this is only one example of many I could quote. as for roe predation , lynx will kill them with ease in the winter months in deed snow when the cats with their big feet can run across the snow where the deer sink in. Another farmer friend had 6 roe feeding on a silage bale they had broken into , a lynx arrived and wiped them out in little over a week , she paid with her life a small 8kg female....
 
^^ Therefore compensate farmers as we already do. £2billion a year or £250 per taxpayer in the UK for farmers.
 
^^ Therefore compensate farmers as we already do. £2billion a year or £250 per taxpayer in the UK for farmers.

Why should I pay farmers more?
I'm happy with the flaura and fauna at the moment.
If somebody wants to introduce other items they should be responsible for compensation not those who do not support the notion!

Ed
 
Neither am I gonna pay anymore, £2billion should be plenty. I would reintroduce freakin rhinos if I owned land and got the sums in subsidies many of them get.
 
^^ Therefore compensate farmers as we already do. £2billion a year or £250 per taxpayer in the UK for farmers.

Can I sense a political agenda here, compensation is all good and well , but it doesn't solve the problem of orphaned lambs that never do, unfortunately predators don't discriminate between good and bad livestock, let us not forget our forfathers unlike us didn't kill these animals for fun.
Ps taxpayers annual food bill would be more than £250 on what they pay now if they had to pay the true cost of production;)
 
Boar are back and here to stay.

And as Roy Dennis states there is plenty of food available for lynx, social and political perceptions are the problem. Fortunately more of the general population are in favour of reintroductions and there is a growing number of wealthy and landed supporters backing it. 50 roe from 100 to 1,000km2 home range is not a big number. They will also take rabbit, foxes and smaller prey - so 50 is a high estimate. Despite our efforts, disease, RTAs the trend is an increase in deer populations and ranges (BDS & DI). I don't mind sharing deer if our reduced and comparatively boring fauna can be restored somewhat.

In Belgium, Germany - Bavaria, Harz, France - Vosages, Jura, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Baltic states, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Bosnia, Hertzegovina etc where Lynx numbers are stable or increasing hunters are not flogging their guns.

What a load of ill informed böllocks. The lynxs move into your area and all your roe will be gone in short order. They will take fallow as well. But still its OK they can just eat all the sheep in the UK before they move on to the deer. In a country like the UK you really don't want boar either. True they are good in the forest but i seem to recall that England has quite a lot of agriculture.
 
I think its great that some on here like Nell and Jagare who actually know what they are talking about and have first hand experience, are being ignored and told they are wrong. Nothing changes...

just out of interest to those who want the lynx reintroduced, why?

Deer provide income, food and sport, whether they are indigenous or not, it's the current state we are in. The lynx will offer what in a modern UK? We have moved on a long way from when they last roamed wild, not least population size. So what exactly will the reintroduction of the lynx offer?
 
I would say the reintroduction of Lynx will happen at some time, maybe not in the near future but within most of our life times. It is the best fit large predator for the UK. There certainly would be less Roe, probably a lot less Roe in core Lynx range, but as we are all about deer control then that would be difficult to argue against.
 
Ps taxpayers annual food bill would be more than £250 on what they pay now if they had to pay the true cost of production;)

You can't prove that because it is clearly an absurd assumption. I support the free market, free choice and lower taxes.

Reference to the OP, great to see boar back in the thread,

I've tried not to ignore Nell, and Jag has just chimed in - I just don't agree with him, is he flogging his guns - doubt it, is he trying to eradicate lynx from Sweden doubt it, suspect he probably wouldnt want to, I appreciate his points, Does he speak for all of Sweden and Europe and their experience , no.
 
You can't prove that because it is clearly an absurd assumption. I support the free market, free choice and lower taxes.

Reference to the OP, great to see boar back in the thread,

I've tried not to ignore Nell, and Jag has just chimed in - I just don't agree with him, is he flogging his guns - doubt it, is he trying to eradicate lynx from Sweden doubt it, suspect he probably wouldnt want to, I appreciate his points, Does he speak for all of Sweden and Europe and their experience , no.

No i won't be selling my guns. I have boar to shoot. Unlike many in the UK i do know a fair bit about boar as i have them on my ground. I also hunt in a place where there is a large fenced area with red, fallow and mufflon. It has to have 2 extra strands of electric fence on the top just to keep out lynx. Who pays for all this, not the tax payer.
Coming back from hunting yesterday i heard on the radio that wolves had killed over a hundred sheep this year in the county that i live in. This is up from 10 last year.
Now Väster Götaland is not know for itssheep production and so far not many wolves.

There are two sides to the story. There is the case as put by Hayduke and the same type people. who live and rule over us in Stockholm and the people who live with the problem of wolf, lynx, bear. Believe me people think a lot different about large preditors out in greater Sweden. It the impact on peoples lives not just hunting that large preditors cause that is the problem.

Naturvårdverket had the area where i live down as a possible place to release wolves. A meeting was called and over 300 people attended with not one person in favour of the idea. Naturvårdsverket did not have the good grace to attend.

No i don't speak for all of Sweden but i'm a bit better informed than many in the UK. I'm not against Lynx or bear in Sweden they are controlled by license hunting and are part of our fauner.
 
As always all this talk of reintroductions with out real thought, every reintroduction or introduction will have an effect,or every action will have reaction if you prefer.

Much is made off the fact that Bear,Lynx, Wolves were all present here in the past, but Britain was a much different place then, Bear and Wolves are a non starter in present day BritaIn
Scotland might be able to support a Lynx population for a time, but at what cost, as there numbers grew they would decimate our Roe population,sheep farmers would suffer heavy losses, OMG we have a big enough problem dealing with predation on lambs by foxes without adding another predator.

I do quite a bit of work on an offshore island on which there had never been foxes until about nine years ago when they were introduced illegally I may add as they were not indigenous to
the Island. now foxes are a big enough problem on the mainland but on an Island where the wildlife had no experience off them it was devastating, game birds apart they had a huge effect on ground roosting and ground nesting birds, lapwings, curlews, and most of all the
shearwaters so much so that there numbers are only a fraction off what they were.

The above is just an example off what happens when you introduce any predator into an area
where they have not previously been, ask anyone responsible for land management for their thoughts on the reintroduction of large predators and their second word will usually be OFF

Rather than thinking of introductions or reintroductions we should be looking after what we already have, and we are sometimes not that good at that.
 
In Scotland we just have to look at the debacle of the reintroduction of the sea eagle.
The RSPB are over joyed at the success and often state that they do not predate on lambs
What we're not told about is that some farmers are losing around 50 lambs a year and are being compensated £200/lamb (by the government) on the quiet so as not to jeopardise the "good" story.

SNP at it again!!!

Ed
 
As per usual with the BBC it's total tosh. The boar are back and here to stay, in fact they will almost certainly continue to expand their range. There is no chance that any predators are actually going to be released into the wild in the UK.

The only part of Countryfile I have any time for is Adam's Farm, and they kept him well away from the badger cull issue.
 
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