Lynx between a species’ reintroduction & ecotourism?

July 11, 2017

Species reintroduction ecotourism. Eurasian lynx in winter coat. By Tom Bech via Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/viatorius/8603098728

Click here for your invitation to write for "Good Tourism" ... Feel free to pass it on.
The rein­tro­duc­tion of the Euras­i­an lynx into European coun­tries has res­ul­ted in new indus­tries such as wild­life tour­ism and eco­tour­ism; “breath­ing new eco­nom­ic life into remote rur­al communities”.

So says the Lynx UK Trust, which last week updated stake­hold­ers on its pro­posed tri­al rein­tro­duc­tion of the Euras­i­an lynx to the Kield­er Forest of Northum­ber­land in north­ern England.

Accord­ing the the Trust, the Euras­i­an lynx is a nat­ive of the Brit­ish Isles that was “forced out of much of West­ern Europe by hab­it­at destruc­tion and human per­se­cu­tion over the last 2,000 years”.

“The last of the Brit­ish lynx dis­ap­peared around the year 700.”

The medi­um-sized cat preys on “deer spe­cies and a vari­ety of smal­ler mam­mal” and is “known by ancient cul­tures around the world as a mys­ter­i­ous ‘Keep­er of Secrets’ that rarely leaves the forest”.

“This sol­it­ary and secret­ive nature means that they present no threat to humans and it is excep­tion­ally rare for them to pred­ate on agri­cul­tur­al animals.

“Their pres­ence will return a vital nat­ur­al func­tion to our eco­logy help­ing con­trol num­bers of deer and a vari­ety of agri­cul­tur­al pest spe­cies whilst pro­tect­ing forestry from deer dam­age caused by overpopulation.”

Species reintroduction ecotourism. A Eurasian lynx kitten. By Bernard Landgraf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=217850

A Euras­i­an lynx kit­ten. By Bern­ard Land­graf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wiki­me­dia.

A “moral obligation”?

Accord­ing to a report by The Guard­i­an, the Kield­er forest was chosen for the tri­al “due to its abund­ance of deer, large forest area and the absence of major roads”.

The six lynx to be released — two young adult males and four young adult females — would come from Sweden, where the spe­cies thrives. All six cats would have GPS col­lars report­ing their loc­a­tion at all times.

Nev­er­the­less, some loc­als are opposed to the rein­tro­duc­tion. Speak­ing on behalf of sheep farm­ers in the area, Nation­al Sheep Asso­ci­ation CEO Phil Stock­er, said: “Even if com­pens­a­tion were offered, it will not make sheep mor­tal­it­ies accept­able. I can­not see how dis­tress­ing attacks caused by a wild anim­al will be accepted.”

How­ever, Dr Paul O’Donoghue, chief sci­entif­ic advisor to the Lynx UK Trust and expert adviser to the Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) told The Guard­i­an: “You will nev­er see a lynx run­ning across an open field chas­ing down prey – they can’t do it. They are the epi­tome of a forest spe­cial­ist – their coat is dappled.”

O’Donoghue says there is a “mor­al oblig­a­tion” to rein­tro­duce lynx: “We killed every single last one of them for the fur trade. That’s a wrong we have to right. Lynx belong here as much as hedge­hogs, badgers, robins, blackbirds.”

On the poten­tial for eco­tour­ism, O’Donoghue said lynx would “gen­er­ate tens of mil­lions of pounds for strug­gling rur­al UK economies”.

Species reintroduction ecotourism. A Eurasian lynx at Skåne Zoo, southern Sweden. By David Castor via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALynx_lynx-4.JPG

A Euras­i­an lynx at Skåne Zoo, south­ern Sweden. By Dav­id Castor via Wiki­me­dia.

“Lynx have already been rein­tro­duced in the Harz moun­tains in Ger­many,” he said. “They have branded the whole area the ‘king­dom of the lynx’. Now it is a thriv­ing eco­tour­ism des­tin­a­tion and we thought we could do exactly the same for Kielder.”

How­ever if the lynx were to be rein­tro­duced it would be very dif­fi­cult for eco­tour­ists to actu­ally see one of the noc­turn­al cats.

“Lynx are very secret­ive and elu­sive, but that’s com­pletely irrel­ev­ant,” O’Donoghue said. “It’s a chance to walk in a forest where lynx live, a chance to see a lynx track, to see a lynx scratch­ing post. And if you did see a lynx in the wild, it would be the wild­life encounter of a lifetime.”

Community consultation

In an open let­ter (Face­book post) to the com­munity of the Kield­er Forest region dated July 6, the Trust explained: “11 months ago we held our first con­sulta­tion meet­ing in Kield­er Com­munity Hall, to present our thoughts on a poten­tial tri­al rein­tro­duc­tion of Euras­i­an lynx in the Kield­er region, and to hear some ini­tial reac­tion to it. Since then hun­dreds of you have spoken to us …”

The Trust’s con­sulta­tion on the poten­tial tri­al has fin­ished and the “com­mu­nic­a­tion has been gathered into our vari­ous reports and sub­mis­sions for the stat­utory agency, Nat­ur­al Eng­land, to shortly consider”.

Species reintroduction ecotourism. Eurasian lynx in Wildpark Leipzig. By Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALeipzig_Wildpark_Eurasian_lynx_01.jpg

Euras­i­an lynx in Wild­park Leipzig. By Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wiki­me­dia.

Nat­ur­al Eng­land is the “government’s adviser for the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment in Eng­land, help­ing to pro­tect England’s nature and land­scapes for people to enjoy and for the ser­vices they provide. Nat­ur­al Eng­land is an exec­ut­ive non-depart­ment­al pub­lic body, sponsored by the Depart­ment for Envir­on­ment, Food & Rur­al Affairs.”

The Trust con­tin­ued: “A tri­al rein­tro­duc­tion can only be suc­cess­ful with broad sup­port across the loc­al com­munity the lynx live along­side, and we know there are many dif­fer­ing per­spect­ives amongst you which are all crit­ic­al to hear.

“In many oth­er coun­tries Euras­i­an lynx rein­tro­duc­tion has proven excep­tion­ally low-con­flict and won­der­fully bene­fi­cial for the loc­al com­munit­ies that live along­side them, and we do sin­cerely hope that these cats, which thrived here for mil­lions of years, do have the oppor­tun­ity to prove they can still fit into both our eco­logy, and along­side loc­al com­munit­ies like those across the Kield­er region.

“The decision on exactly what hap­pens next in the pro­cess will fall to the stat­utory agen­cies, who will receive all of the accu­mu­lated study and an applic­a­tion for a five year tri­al rein­tro­duc­tion with­in the next two months.”

Turn up the vole-ume

The lynx would­n’t be the first spe­cies rein­tro­duced to the Kield­er region.

Species reintroduction ecotourism. The largest ever reintroduction of endangered water voles in the UK is underway. Source: VisitKielder.com

The largest ever rein­tro­duc­tion of endangered water voles in the UK is under­way. Source: VisitKielder.com

Last month (June 2017) the Kield­er Water & Forest Park announced the much less con­tro­ver­sial release of 700 water voles in Kield­er Forest. After a 30-year absence of that spe­cies in the forest, it is the largest water vole rein­tro­duc­tion to one place ever under­taken in the UK.

The Kield­er Water Vole Part­ner­ship released about half of the water voles in June; those from “strong pop­u­la­tions over the bor­der in Scot­land”. The oth­er half — “the young from voles cap­tured in the North Pen­nines in late sum­mer 2016” — is due to be released next month (August  2017).

“The aim is to restore pop­u­la­tions of the endangered mam­mal in the Kield­er catch­ment of the north Tyne with a view to their even­tu­al spread through­out west­ern reaches of Northumberland.”

Water voles were a com­mon sight in UK water­courses until the 1970s and 80s, when a com­bin­a­tion of escaped Amer­ic­an mink (pred­at­ors of water voles) and hab­it­at loss took a severe toll on water vole pop­u­la­tions. As res­ult, the water vole is now absent from the major­ity of Northumberland’s rivers.

Fea­tured image: Euras­i­an lynx in winter coat. By Tom Bech via Flickr

Related posts

Follow comments on this post
Please notify me of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.