Tigers would go instinct pretty fast as the UK is not really home to millions of Deer or Buffalos or Wild Pigs/Wild Boar. It couldn't survive on stealing chickens like a Fox, a big predator like a Tiger requires big prey.
Because nobody minds them eating people from Bangladesh. If they could be trained to only eat that colour of person, yes by all means introduce them to the uk.
@@zainasif3485 yes we should. I am not racist mate despite the comments you have read. It was only meant in humour, i appreciate you probably don't find it funny and i apologise if i have offended you or anyone else. Sorry.
In Romania lynxes have existed since forever. I've never seen one in my entire life in the wild and I've hiked the mountains quite a lot. They're very shy animals that prefer to stay as hidden as possible from humans and bigger predators. Farmers have more problems with bears attacking their cows. I've never heard of a lynx attacking sheep. They have more than enough prey in the forest.
We have Lynx where I live... attacks on sheep by lynx are practically unheard-of. We even have wolves, even though they do attack sheep, it is so rare it almost always makes it into national news when it happens. Oh btw we also have a large population of brown bear but they will rather engage in dumpster diving than sheep killing.
I know that's what i was thinking. They have wild pops of bobcats coyotes, wolves and cougars near farm land in the US and those farmers seem to do fine with proper fencing and livestock guardian dogs. These guys need to suck it up.
Filling the void of apex predators should be done. Choosing which species of cats, wolves, bears... that's more tricky. Who's to say the extinct UK species were exactly the same as mainland Europe? They had millions of years evolving in a different environment and climate
"We should look after the species, that we have here": True, but without the keystone animals like carnivores and big grazers (European Bison, Wild Horse...) ecosystems always will need human assistence and can't keep all the biodiversity.
@@carnotaurus8181 So how do we ruin the ecosystem by reintroducing native species? The big animals are important for keeping the ecosystem in balance. We in Germany have wolves and lynx and farmers almost never have problems with lynx. There only 0-2 cases a year, that a lynx will sneek upon sheep. With wolves is a different story, but even with them we live quite comfortably in our densely populated country of over 80 million. You need proper predator deterring measures, like livestock guardian dogs and fencing. But without fencing the dogs also work quite well.
The lynx is an ambush predator and as such does not drive deer away from grazing areas, as the bear or wolves do. On the West Coast of BC we live quite happily with bears, wolves, and cougars. I really don't see the issue with the lynx and wolves back into the highlands, not enough habitat to support bear introductions.
@@cockoffgewgle4993 And bees kill 80 people in the US alone, its all about how those numbers are presented. Bears attack 40 per year worldwide. I'm curious where you found that theres 20-30 in just Canada. The west is extremely hippocritical when it comes to our natural predators, we will praise the conservation of tigers (who kill about 50 people per year,) In other countries but we will turn a blind eye to wolves and bears who have killed about 29 people since 2010. As someone who lives near areas with wolves and bears, I've never heard of anyone having an encounter other than someone once hitting a wolf on the road. Even Wikipedia actually has a great list of people attacked by animals year by year. Also the population density of the UK would actually be an advantage. Wolves hate the dense populations that largely make up the UK. Wolf encounters usually happen in areas with low population density. Bears are a bit different in that they are pretty well known for taking trash from the edges of neighborhoods but even then you will probably never see the bear, just a tipped over bin. Bears and especially wolves tend to be even more skittish than deer from my experience. They have the senses both mentally and physically to get nowhere near humans if they can help it.
@@kahlmer6681 www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/140508-bear-attack-mauling-grizzly-black-wildlife-animals "In a study of more recent black bears attacks, both lethal and nonlethal, Herrero and Hank Hristienko, a biologist with the Manitoba provincial government, found 92 attacks across Canada and the U.S. from 2010 to 2013. The number of attacks annually climbed from 19 in 2010 to 32 last year." I don't think you can conceive of how tiny and densely populated the UK is. Comparing it to Canada is just absurd.
We have lynx in Poland and I never heard of a lynx attack on farm animals. They stays in forests if they have enough of prey and its even rare to spot them or take photo.
Yeh, a lot of UK people are usually just too scared about everything, or just want to be argumentative and oppose everything..... they don't like change....at least the older generation don't. If it was up to some farmers and gamekeepers there would be a plan to exterminate every predator from the uk and also any animals that eat crops... as well is any birds that poop on cars. So there would be nothing left.
@@elizabethtaylor9321 No, they don't. Canadian lynx are even smaller than Eurasian lynx and almost exclusively hunt hares. Cougars are another matter. Those guys are massive and do hunt the occasional dog. In Germany, the Harz population has expanded quite a bit and pretty much noone has seen any of them in the wild.
@@elizabethtaylor9321 I live in Finland and lynx live here. They don't come into houses and they don't take dogs. They do sometimes kill cats though, but cats do no belong to the forest anyway.
While the claims of an individual person can't be considered proof, it's possible that very small numbers could continue to exist considering how reclusive they are. I personally doubt that though.
I have one friend who saw one near Loch Ken in Galloway. I have another friend who saw one on the edge of a golf course in West Linton, another who saw one near to Peebles. Three occasions; all reliable people. I think they are here.
We had similar controversies wrt the reintroduction of wolves in some American national parks. The end result is, that wolves help to keep entire ecosystems healthy, from grasses and plants to wild animal populations.
Is there livestock farming in those parks though? Not being a dick, it's just that Scotland is much smaller. I imagine some of those national parks are half the size of Scotland itself. If I was a farmer in the area I'd be annoyed at the financial losses imposed on me by a central government decision
I'm from Alberta. Couldn't believe in Montana they were losing their shit over some wolves. Even more so that Scots are losing their shit over lynx. That is the very last predator animal I worry about. I've only ever seen one once at 230am on a remote road. They mostly take rabbits here.
@@penguinpie5056 north American lynx is smaller than the eurasian one, but its still not a threat to either human, nor any lifestock if handled well, same stands for wolfes.
Lynx rarely take sheep unless they are desperate and there’s not enough deer which is highly unlikely considering the amount of deer in Scotland plus lynx will only take about one sheep compared to how foxes can take up to 30 chickens in one night
Consider another example: wolves have been reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park, USA, after so many decades of it being wolf free. This helps to keep the grazers moving so that they don't stay on the same spot. And I'm talking animals like deer. And, of course, livestock owners don't want these wolves in their area. However, it is beneficial for the wild. We need apex predators in order to properly diversify the grazers.
Idk wat the deal was there ...it had to be tame....i live in B.C. Canada...in an isolated community where the Lynx population is high. I have seen mountain lions several times. I've lived here 40yrs...I've never seen a Lynx. To suggest they promote tourism is absurd. A WILD lynx would never sit on log in day light in front of humans.
Exactly !!! I have a friend who years ago had a pet lynx she found when he was so young she bottle fed him So he was a huge pet , but even with people he didn't know , could be in same room and not know it. He was not timid by any means , he just was very selective about who he showed himself to
Filipe Matias Well keep your pets indoors , another stupid idea by the woolly hat brigade , do they really think they will stay in the wild areas when there is much easier prey lower down , and when they move into urban areas cat dogs etc are like takeaways .
elizabeth taylor it’s a stupid idea yet there’s tigers in Bangladesh living in the streets and there perfectly fine and we asked them to take care of their animals yet we can’t even protect are landscape or even reintroduce a lynx let alone a fucking tiger. We need natural predators to keep a balance in the ecosystem like wolves like lynx and even bears, deer populations on the rise and culling inefficient look at Yellowstone national park thriving with biodiversity and all are national parks are basically one big sheep farm of over grazing hills. Don’t you think farming has gone a bit too far. Not saying we should stop farming by any means but they need to step farming back a bit in Britain.
Lynx have been reintroduced to Switzerland's Alpine regions since 1971. I have myself had an enchanting 'encounter' with a juvenile lynx in the area of Untertrübsee in Engelberg in the Central Swiss Alps one night back in the 1990s driving to Alp Arni Wang and back to the hut we had been tenants of for years. It was the only time I ever saw a lynx in the flesh and never have I heard that they had been a major threat to the more than 600 sheep in the small area of Alp Ober Arni. There are plenty of chamois up there and other wild animals that the lynx can feed on, especially the weaker ones that would most probably not survive anyway, and certainly not the alpine winter. The Scottish sheep farmer is only talking of his own profit and .. wow! Three lambs in each ewe??? Pheeew! I thought three lambs would be the exception but he is talking as if it were normal. It is not only about the tourist's daylight entertainment. The introduction of the lynx is much more important to the environment than the personal profit of a farmer, no offense. I understand that we all have to make our living and how tough it is in Scotland especially. It is, however, possible to include the lynx in one's tourist programs, be it a nocturnal animal or not. I don not, although, think it right to show them off like in a circus as it is being done in Germany's Harz region. It is a wild animal and it should be allowed to live a natural life.
The lynx that were reintroduced in the Harz were zoo-bred (most other projects use cats caught from wild populations elsewhere). They spend years to get the animals to unlearn their zoo-animals' behaviours. The four lynx that are shown in the enclosure are the ones who "failed" that training (too friendly to humans and so on), so they could not be released. So instead they keep them in the large enclosures (they got way more space than they would get in most normal zoos).
Living and shooting in North Devon all my early life I've seen 4 lynx and one even bigger black cat. but every time it's aways been that i was by luck down wind of them and still for long periods, i think you would never see one if you were moving. Honestly it was scary until i realised the cats were more scared of me than i was them. As for the black cat i was shaking but again when it spotted me it ran off. Three things, they are beautiful big, much bigger than you would imagine, and like ghosts you never hear them I consider myself really lucky.
@@charlietaylor4835 no people keep exotic cats as pets too. I haven’t seen any but I know a few who have claimed to see a Jaguar sized black cat. A friend of mine watched one kill sheep in the field behind her house.
They were never wiped out, the lynx has always been here, greatly reduced numbers but still here! People have been seeing and reporting them for yrs now! We have too many deer and they are eating all the new new young trees so we need more lynx or the wolves to be reintroduced to keep the natural balance!
Susan Stocks im a keen bushcrafter and have seen them a few times over the yrs, i know where they are but not sure if they are breeding tho, im sure ive been near the lair because the smell is the same as a big cat enclosure at the zoo, pungent.! I keep the locations to myself because i like the fact they are here and want to keep it that way so best if we all keep the locations of our sightings to ourselves, for the sake of the animal and our WILDlife!
@Apple Pie and you are obviously well uninformed about wolves and humans living together! Its happening in plenty of other countries and has done for centuries! Probably no point trying to explain this to you tho!!!
There is a fairly large population of lynx in Sweden, still it’s such a rare thing to see them that those who do see one and who manage to snap a photo of it end up in the local paper. If Britain reintroduces them, you won’t even know they’re there.
People saying lynx should not come back to the UK are some of the same people who own big dogs like pitbull type breeds which are far more likely to attack some one.
Bring em back. I live in the Forest of Dean and people are still crying over the wild boar (who need a natural predator) so it won't happen here hopefully Scotland though. We need to learn to coexist with animals and plant more trees.
If you want to control the boar population, the lynx is of little help. Lynx only go after boars if all else fails since boars are quite dangerous to a solitary cat. You need wolves for that.
I agree, wild bore need a natural predator, but sadly, people have just cut the Forest of Dean back way too much for wolves, bears and lynx, it makes me sad to see how much people have ruined the UK's natural beauty and once rich wild life.
What about the big cat species already living here, such as panthers, pumas & also, Eurasian lynx? Presumably lynx are already here with these other big cat species? I've heard it said that they want to go beyond reintroducing native species, to actually introducing non native species from other parts of the world?
This has to happen we need lynx... and we got rid of wolves, bears and all threats including Eagles, I’m glad we have now brought eagles back to the UK though and Beavers
We have Kestrels in our local town hall's tower now. They have also made their own nests in a few mobile towers around the town. They are absolutely decimating the pigeons. Which was the idea but I don't think anybody thought they would be as industrious as they have proven. Its awesome to watch them swoop out of the sky just not so fun if your right underneath and get peppered with pigeon heads.
They are already here,I had the good fortune to see one in Painswick Wood,UK, back in the 1990's . Totally unexpected left my partner and myself gobsmacked for a moment before we turned to each other and confirmed what we had both seen to each other.
I've met people who saw big cats in Devon in the '90s, not lynx but possibly puma. I believe some of these big cats have been released in the past although I'm skeptical as to whether there are breeding populations in the UK as some claim.
Excellent teaching resource. Just knowing lynx are out there and having the slimmest chance of a sighting - even seeing scat - would be enough to make me visit. Going to Brasov for 3 nights for this exact reason in two weeks time :-)
@Susan Stocks Where have you seen one? If they were here, there would be more evidence of them. George Monibot suggests in Feral that people 'see' large cats when none are there as a legacy of our evolution alongside dangerous, big cats in Africa.
I love how it's the LYNX, which was hunted out of existence by humans, whose numbers need to be reduced instead of the farmers taking responsibility for their own property, according to the german guy. Why can't he get some guard animals such as dogs or even donkeys?
@@RealEyesRealiseRealLies yes 100%!! My friends uncle was a grounds keeper for a large mansion, the owner was an Arab guy who only used it a few weeks in the summer so me and my friend would go there to play around on the land... There was a wooded area we were walking through all a sudden we spotted the Lynx on a fallen tree we were only around 30 meters from it, we were scared as hell, we slowly backed away and then ran. We both saw it, we both reacted in the same 'oh shit' scared way without saying anything to each other, we both instinctively knew big cat = bad lol. Only when we got back to the house did we talk about what we saw and later tell our parents. To this day I have no doubt it was a Lynx, clear as day!
I say bring the Lynx back they were absolutely wiped out unnecessarily by human beings and they deserve to roam the places that they belong to and are a natural part of the ecosystem 💯🇮🇪
I’ve just been walking my dog and there was a paw print the size of my hand and No dog has a paw print that thick and wide so I believe a lynx is in the area I live in North England so if there’s lynx in Scotland what’s to say they can’t travel south into England
A friend of mine came upon one last summer near Ringstead Northants. Fishing a lake, walking around at 11.30pm, wearing a headtorch with a red light. Walked around a corner and saw 2 big glowing eyes reflected at 10-15yds. Stood still for a few seconds wondering what it was, then turned red light to white, at which point he saw exactly what was standing looking at him! Stood for 10-15 seconds, then silently leapt over a fence and gone. He saw the tufty ears, size /markings and the bobtail. The size and power of its muscular legs struck him the most! He shit himself, went back to his bivvy and zipped himself in! He thought about calling the police to tell them! He spoke to the owner / farmer of the lakes, but he'd never heard of any sightings or livestock kills. He says it was 100% a Lynx, he is a keen nature lover like myself and watches any documentaries about animals.
Saw one running along the verge about 8 miles north of Norwich Norfolk, around 11pm last September whilst driving home. I had it down to about 10 metres before it darted through an opening and turned to look back at me from just inside the field, I could clearly see it was a Lynx. One was captured in Norwich in the 1990s, so they may already be here breeding in the area. I am also keen on nature and 100% sure of what I saw.
Sweden, Finland and Norway all have lynx, wolves and bears. They do not pose any threat to humans. They do take sheep, occasionally, but a study from Denmark, where the wolf recently returned as well, although none of the other two, shows that it's far more common that dogs running unleashed attacks sheep, than wolves.
There are many places in the UK were the lynx could survive, the only issue is that many of our wilder places are crissed-crossed with roads, and traffic and the lynx don't mix too well.
Once there are more forests in Britain bring back lynx first, them see how the public handle large predators, then bring back other predators such as wolves maybe bear, and other native species like Elk, boar and others.
@Adam Peake You realise we have over twice the forest cover in the UK that we had 100 years ago? Introducing wolves and bear in the UK is a ludicrous idea.
@@notdaveschannel9843 I would be weary of introducing wolves and bears as they're generally aggressive creatures but Lynxs never go out of their way to harm humans. Having a propulation of lynx to balance the deer population would be of great benefit to the ecosystem.
@@afthefragile The stats on lynx predation of sheep that I've seen are pretty varied but they'd definintely take some sheep. The best way to control deer is with a rifle but a government plan to encourage deerstalking wouldn't be very popular in a country that's so sentimental about animals.
@@notdaveschannel9843 Having a guard dog looking aftrer the sheep and some electrical fencing would be easy deterrants for most wild animals to attack sheep but that would mean the farmers will have to pay more for these things which they aren't willing to do. A Lynx would rather go for a rabbit or deer which are just as abundant rather than have to risk dealing with electrical fences and angry dogs to get their meal. In most of Europe farmers have to deal with a lot more than just a couple of skittish shy lynxes, you've got wolves, bears, wolverines, and they manage fine. Shooting deer will only reduce their numbers but it wont change their behaviour. Having a predator changes the way the deer behave where they stay constantly on the move and avoid staying in one area for a long time, this is what ultimately allows the natural forests to regenerate, not just having less deer, but deer spending less time grazing in one particular area.
I went to northern Sweden in 2015 I remember seeing these beautiful cats in their natural habitat, I say introduce them already it's nothin but a good thing, our great woodlands need a apex predator
Lynx have never been extinct in the Uk , I’ve seen one and so have a few people I know . How these people know so little what lives in our countryside is astounding .
Someone i spoke to, claims he saw one in West Sussex while out walking his dog. Who knows? It's possible. It's a fact that we now have puma, panther/leopard and lynx all breeding wild, in the UK. Lynx are of course, a native species.
Its not that simple my friend, the ecosystem is a complex web. E.g. a population boom of lynx. they would need to turn to food sources other than deer/foxes - having livestock available, there would be nothing to stop the further increase of lynx population
@@UpliftedBrother yep its a much more complicated situation than people are willing to admit. The reintroduction of lynx would definitely mean lots of livestock get eaten
@@UpliftedBrother it should be fine, here in the UK the deer, foxes etc. have no natural predators here because we wiped them all out centuries ago, which is what started this campaign of reintroducing native animals. Remember, these kinds of animals have been predating their natural prey for thousands of years before we started breeding sheep en mass.
Lynx definitely do NOT hunt foxes, no carnivore hunts another carnivore for food it's unnatural. They might kill a fox that comes it's way but not go out it's way to look for foxes to eat.
No different species, bobcats are smaller - more southern latitudes in USA. Lynx different species in Europe and Asia to America & generally more northern.
It varies significantly from Scotland to England but for the vast majority of the UK it's going to be a lot more densely populated than most European areas where wild Lynx still persist .. 🤔 so I suppose that problem encounters between people, their livestock and Lynx might be expected to happen a little more often than many enthusiasts basing their opinion on data from mainland Europe would like to suggest. Not that I think lynx are really an issue for people, they're not exactly big cats after all, but I think they probably would take a lot more sheep than some would suggest.
Personally I think they should be introduced back into this country. I'm certainly no expert but have a fascination with big cats so know a bit. In other European counties they discovered that livestock only make up around 3 percent of lynx diets. However, they will predate on foxes which do a hell of a lot of damage to sheep and lambs. Obviously it's a complex issue but farmers who claim there are already some bigs cats in the UK seem to tolerate some stock losses because of the apparent reduction in fox and badger numbers. Also the deer population in this country is huge so an apex predator would restore a natural balance to our countryside. Food for thought.
So, if the lynx that escaped from Borth zoo on the very edge of the forested and very sparsely populated mountains of north Wales had to be 'humanely destroyed' because the local council received advice that the risk to public safety had "increased to severe", how do we conclude that releasing them in the UK is safe?
We seem to be getting mixed messages from the BBC then because almost every word in my original post was culled from their website. Actually, a lynx is perfectly capable of taking down human prey (especially a child) and I'd personally rather not see the Eurasian Lynx in the UK.I would however support the introduction of the Iberian lynx which is smaller, closer to out own now extinct species and endangered and in need of all the extra habitat that can be made available to it.
I don't doubt your conviction or sincerity but you have to appreciate that without tangible evidence, your personal perceptions hold no evidential value at all. It's not just you, either, my own father recalls a big cat encounter at a distance of less than 3m when walking his dogs in the Wyre forest and he is a shooter who knows his wildlife. Regardless of how much I think he believes his account, I can't accept it without evidence - and evidence can be had as was recently shown with the Staffordshire pine martins.
I believe that he saw something and I believe that he is sincere in his interpretation. Lets remove the lynx from the equation and suppose he was telling me that he saw a miniature elephant. Which is more likely......that he actually saw and is reporting the sighting of a diminutive temperate pachyderm or that some error in visual processing or memory storage has caused him to erroneously believe that he had seen such a beastie? If there had been TV coverage of supposed tiny heffalumps featuring self appointed "experts", would that make an interpretive error more or less likely? Same logic applies to Bigfoot, to UFOs and to God claims. I don't care about someone's sincerity, social standing or experience, if they haven't got tangible evidence, their eyewitness testimony counts for very little.
There you go, throwing your rattle out of the pram and demonstrating exactly why scepticism is required. I'm not "smugly getting great pleasure in ridiculing mocking and poking fun at those who have witnessed such things", I'm simply pointing out that human beings a fallible and prone to cognitive error and bias - and that the only way to counter those fallibilities is to demand significant evidence to support significant claims and to require extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. As to my father's report, I don't doubt that he saw something (he described it only as a big cat that was black and growled) but why should I not hold him to the same evidential standards to which I would hold a stranger? Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
While the views of farmers should be taken into account there is a related aspect to all of this that never gets mentioned. It is the imminent changes in food production technology. I doubt farms as we have known them for 6,000 years will be around much longer. In the near future large areas of land won't be needed and re-wilding initiatives will reclaim large areas of the world.
Britannia used to be home to large macropredators such as wolves, bears, big cats, and hyenas. She also used to be home to colossal herbivores such as bison, rhinos, and elephants. Now the largest predator and prey are the red fox and red deer respectively. The reintroduction of the lynx would be a great step in the right direction towards rebuilding the natural ecosystem of this great island.
We should all get together and sign one huge partition, we want the UK LYNX back.... I know once theyvare deemed safe for home use. Im buying me 2 and i dont care how much they cost... you get a cat, dog and home security all in one package. Epicness. And just imagine walking through town with a pin stripe suit and 2 of these big paw pussycats. Hard pimping. Thats just cool. Real COOL... and you guys know it.!!!
@Richard Williams yes, following the introduction of the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act many exotic 'big cats' such as leopards, puma were realised into the rural parts of the UK - due to people not being able to afford the license fees. Thus overtime, with the uncontrolled dear populations existing in many of the UK's rural areas prey has not been hard to find... sightings have increased linearly with time and this is thought to be due to the small populations now being able to breed. Leopards etc are so highly adaptable living in all sorts of ecosystems including 'urban leopards' in India - so theoretically there existence is probable. However, hard evidence is minimal despite multiple scat findings, footprint casts and 3-4 incidents of big cat roadkill.
It's totally fine many animals used to be able to run away from predators, what I'm saying is, it would balance itself out and probably no animal race would go extinct
The animals that live in the UK wilderness today Foxes, Badgers, Robins, Owls, Hedgehogs, Ferrets, Deers, Otters, Beavers, Squirrels, Red squirrels, Falcons, Scottish wild cats, Voles, Moles, Curlews, Herons, Ducks, Pheasants, Sparrows, Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Tits, Grey seals, Fin whale, Mice, Rats, Shrews, Grass snakes, Rabbits, Hares, Bats, Polecats, Frogs, Toads, Pikes, Minks, Pine Martens, Spoonbills, Adders, Walrus, Pelicans and Panthers(The beast of Bodmin Moore) The Animals that used to live in the UK wilderness Bears, Wolves, Irish Elks, Bisons, Wild Horses, Lynxes, Saiga antelopes, Aurochses, Great Auks, Woolly Mammoths, Lemmings, Cave Lions, Cave Hyenas, Arctic Foxes, Barbary Macaques, Burbot, Houtings, Western Green lizards, Terrapins, Cranes, Dalmatian Pelicans, European ice age leopards, European Jaguars, Grey Whales, Musk Rats and Homotherium(Scimitar-toothed cat)
Scottish wild cats are a joke mate cos they interbreed with domestic cats! I wouldn't even bother wasting conservation funds on them or any wild animal that can interbreed with domestic pets!
This makes me laugh. We know that there are already 'big cats' including lynx living wild in the UK quite successfully and breeding. What I don't understand is why defra won't man up and admit it despite all of the sightings throughout the country.
With camera traps and everyone having a mobile, they are, like me, waiting for photographic evidence. Or even the evidence of a roadkill. Very odd. I saw a puma once in Devon, but when i got close, it was just an oversized farmyard cat. A trick of the light and my imagination.
And introducing a Lynx would help in increasing the size of forests. One of the biggest reason forests don't grow in UK is because of all the deer that roam freely and eat up any young shoots preventing forests from regrowing. If a few Lynx can control the deer population, the it'll take the pressure of the forest ecosystems and allow them to rejuvinate.
If you are worried about your sheep, adopt a Livestock Guardian Dog or two. They in turn adopt the herd as if they were their own puppies and will definitely fight off a Lynx. The North-West Farm Terrier comes to mind. Or, if you live in the EU, the Greek Shepard.
Horrible to see all the dead animals around, animals that you have for the purpose of being killed. I think he meant it was horrible to see a loss of profits.
It’s crazy that no mainstream parties have big plans on rewilding and national parks, we should really be taking care of our island and reintroducing the diversity we lost.
I live in a area with a ton of Canadian Lynx. You would not know they were there, but if you travel the dirt roads enough you will eventually see one. We do get tourists wanting to specifically see Lynx and a good guide can usually find one for them, no guarantee though. They will spend top dollar Canadian Lynx are smaller and can be a pest with chickens. We have a predator balance with wolves, cougar and bears as well. Apart from bears, any livestock damage is no questions asked compensated with cash on the spot, this keeps the farmers happy. Cougars with sheep and calves are the main problem and this is still very uncommon though. Most predators prefer their natural prey. We have huge populations of hares, deer and elk so the predators are well fed and rarely visit the farms.
there are lynx in the UK, I know that because i seen one where i live in the north east of England, or at least a hybrid of one as well as a caracal hybrid that was grey in colour, I also know others that have leopard type cats up north. So how can they say reintroduce these cats when they are already here.
An holistic approach is needed to ensure there would be no human/wildlife conflict, "hefted" livestock would have to be replaced by herded (high density grazing) with possible night corrals, or alternatively, guard dogs to keep the Lynx away from sheep and calves. We managed cattle and sheep on an extensive property (conservancy) with African lynx and leopards amongst the predators, so know this can work if properly planned and managed.
Lynx to not prey on cattle or calves. Most calves are not in the fields anyway in the UK, they are in barns for veal or meat. Only danger might be young sheep. However, Lynx kill any foxes on their territory, and foxes kill more lambs than a lynx could... so it would be an asset to the farmer! They also control pests like deer and rabbits... again an benefit.
If Rabbit make up most of their diet then they would be competing against the Scottish Wildcat, already a threatened species. Does anyone think of how awful it would be to see any end up as 'roadkill'?
Introduce tigers , give walking through the countryside the edge.
Haha
Better idea, why not introduce giraffe and Komodo dragons? They'd fit right in!
Why not bring manatees then? They can definitely thrive on land.
Tigers would go instinct pretty fast as the UK is not really home to millions of Deer or Buffalos or Wild Pigs/Wild Boar. It couldn't survive on stealing chickens like a Fox, a big predator like a Tiger requires big prey.
😂
I don't see why lynx shouldn't exist in the UK even in crowded England. If tigers can exist in even more crowded Bangladesh..
Because nobody minds them eating people from Bangladesh. If they could be trained to only eat that colour of person, yes by all means introduce them to the uk.
John Slack bit racist but okay...
@@jamieb1830 its a racist world we live in mate.
John Slack but we should stop racism
@@zainasif3485 yes we should. I am not racist mate despite the comments you have read. It was only meant in humour, i appreciate you probably don't find it funny and i apologise if i have offended you or anyone else.
Sorry.
In Romania lynxes have existed since forever. I've never seen one in my entire life in the wild and I've hiked the mountains quite a lot. They're very shy animals that prefer to stay as hidden as possible from humans and bigger predators. Farmers have more problems with bears attacking their cows. I've never heard of a lynx attacking sheep. They have more than enough prey in the forest.
We have Lynx where I live... attacks on sheep by lynx are practically unheard-of. We even have wolves, even though they do attack sheep, it is so rare it almost always makes it into national news when it happens. Oh btw we also have a large population of brown bear but they will rather engage in dumpster diving than sheep killing.
and a couple of sheep dogs will also deter most predators,even bears
Don’t forget England/Scotland/whales is a tiny island
We have them where i live, i've had one come right up to the opening of my tent, and Lynx generally kill rabbits and rodents, very rarely sheep
@@Doncorleone44 *Wales
Also, dont forget they arent exctly massive cats, think we could fit a few in coast to coast lol
Where are you living? Romania?
Isn't it funny how in just a few generations all our sheep farmers have forgotten what guard dogs are for...
Too lazy to be bothered
Exactly..... They just want to be couch farmers and drink their whisky calmly in front of the fire
@M E they're mainly for wool
I know that's what i was thinking. They have wild pops of bobcats coyotes, wolves and cougars near farm land in the US and those farmers seem to do fine with proper fencing and livestock guardian dogs. These guys need to suck it up.
@@deat451 and also guns.
Bring them back. It’s so true about how we preach to other countries about their wildlife xxx
You know nothing
Yes bring them back and bring bears and moose as well
@@bridder83 were moose in the UK? I know bison used to be, and a reintroduction of them has started already
Filling the void of apex predators should be done. Choosing which species of cats, wolves, bears... that's more tricky. Who's to say the extinct UK species were exactly the same as mainland Europe? They had millions of years evolving in a different environment and climate
We had bears and moose and wolves years ago
"We should look after the species, that we have here": True, but without the keystone animals like carnivores and big grazers (European Bison, Wild Horse...) ecosystems always will need human assistence and can't keep all the biodiversity.
obiwahn dagobah consider the many times we have ruined ecosystems and what about before humans
Such a common counterargument from farmers and the like. It's incredibly frustrating for wildlife biologists like myself.
@@carnotaurus8181 So how do we ruin the ecosystem by reintroducing native species? The big animals are important for keeping the ecosystem in balance. We in Germany have wolves and lynx and farmers almost never have problems with lynx. There only 0-2 cases a year, that a lynx will sneek upon sheep. With wolves is a different story, but even with them we live quite comfortably in our densely populated country of over 80 million. You need proper predator deterring measures, like livestock guardian dogs and fencing. But without fencing the dogs also work quite well.
Wild horses have no place
@@kaidenhall2718 And why should that be? It is a native European species.
They are entitled to be here just as much as us
Let’s have a referendum on the reintroduction .
Cool idea
Democracy sucks though and it could fail
The lynx is an ambush predator and as such does not drive deer away from grazing areas, as the bear or wolves do. On the West Coast of BC we live quite happily with bears, wolves, and cougars. I really don't see the issue with the lynx and wolves back into the highlands, not enough habitat to support bear introductions.
Canada is 40 times the size of the UK and half as populated. That's the issue. And you have 20-30 bear attacks each year.
@@cockoffgewgle4993 And bees kill 80 people in the US alone, its all about how those numbers are presented. Bears attack 40 per year worldwide. I'm curious where you found that theres 20-30 in just Canada. The west is extremely hippocritical when it comes to our natural predators, we will praise the conservation of tigers (who kill about 50 people per year,) In other countries but we will turn a blind eye to wolves and bears who have killed about 29 people since 2010. As someone who lives near areas with wolves and bears, I've never heard of anyone having an encounter other than someone once hitting a wolf on the road. Even Wikipedia actually has a great list of people attacked by animals year by year. Also the population density of the UK would actually be an advantage. Wolves hate the dense populations that largely make up the UK. Wolf encounters usually happen in areas with low population density. Bears are a bit different in that they are pretty well known for taking trash from the edges of neighborhoods but even then you will probably never see the bear, just a tipped over bin. Bears and especially wolves tend to be even more skittish than deer from my experience. They have the senses both mentally and physically to get nowhere near humans if they can help it.
@@kahlmer6681 www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/140508-bear-attack-mauling-grizzly-black-wildlife-animals
"In a study of more recent black bears attacks, both lethal and nonlethal, Herrero and Hank Hristienko, a biologist with the Manitoba provincial government, found 92 attacks across Canada and the U.S. from 2010 to 2013. The number of attacks annually climbed from 19 in 2010 to 32 last year."
I don't think you can conceive of how tiny and densely populated the UK is. Comparing it to Canada is just absurd.
So are tigers, I'd be up for introducing tigers to Scotland 😏
@@cockoffgewgle4993 thats grizzlys m8, posibbly the most dangerous of them all, big difference compared to a eurasian brown bear; )
We have lynx in Poland and I never heard of a lynx attack on farm animals. They stays in forests if they have enough of prey and its even rare to spot them or take photo.
Yeh, a lot of UK people are usually just too scared about everything, or just want to be argumentative and oppose everything..... they don't like change....at least the older generation don't. If it was up to some farmers and gamekeepers there would be a plan to exterminate every predator from the uk and also any animals that eat crops... as well is any birds that poop on cars. So there would be nothing left.
We also have Lynx in Germany. They do attack sheeps sometimes, but it is quite rare. Very different compared to wolves.
Bring them back they are beautiful and non aggressive 🇬🇧
Mike Smith since when ? Ask people in North America and Canada , they come into house and take cats and dogs in broad daylight .
@@elizabethtaylor9321 No, they don't. Canadian lynx are even smaller than Eurasian lynx and almost exclusively hunt hares.
Cougars are another matter. Those guys are massive and do hunt the occasional dog.
In Germany, the Harz population has expanded quite a bit and pretty much noone has seen any of them in the wild.
@JayoJay In all of human history there are no recorded attacks on humans by a Lynx. Not one. Why would they start in UK?
@@Temptation666 because people havent been recording through all of human history
@@elizabethtaylor9321 I live in Finland and lynx live here. They don't come into houses and they don't take dogs. They do sometimes kill cats though, but cats do no belong to the forest anyway.
The guy says lynx are nocturnal, then proceeds to show lynx active during the day
They hunt mainly in the early hours of morning and late in the evening, with the day used mainly for lounging around lazyly in the sun.
Humans are made to be out in the day but they can be active at night, as can most other predators. This isn't surprising or contradictive in any way.
We saw a lynx sitting on our garden wall
One morning here in Scotland in the 90’s . There have been other sightings too over the years
Yea I dont think they have gone
While the claims of an individual person can't be considered proof, it's possible that very small numbers could continue to exist considering how reclusive they are. I personally doubt that though.
I have one friend who saw one near Loch Ken in Galloway. I have another friend who saw one on the edge of a golf course in West Linton, another who saw one near to Peebles. Three occasions; all reliable people. I think they are here.
We had similar controversies wrt the reintroduction of wolves in some American national parks.
The end result is, that wolves help to keep entire ecosystems healthy, from grasses and plants to wild animal populations.
Is there livestock farming in those parks though? Not being a dick, it's just that Scotland is much smaller. I imagine some of those national parks are half the size of Scotland itself. If I was a farmer in the area I'd be annoyed at the financial losses imposed on me by a central government decision
I'm from Alberta. Couldn't believe in Montana they were losing their shit over some wolves. Even more so that Scots are losing their shit over lynx. That is the very last predator animal I worry about. I've only ever seen one once at 230am on a remote road. They mostly take rabbits here.
@@penguinpie5056 north American lynx is smaller than the eurasian one, but its still not a threat to either human, nor any lifestock if handled well, same stands for wolfes.
Lynx rarely take sheep unless they are desperate and there’s not enough deer which is highly unlikely considering the amount of deer in Scotland plus lynx will only take about one sheep compared to how foxes can take up to 30 chickens in one night
And the lynx will take the foxes too which would be good for farmers.
Consider another example: wolves have been reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park, USA, after so many decades of it being wolf free. This helps to keep the grazers moving so that they don't stay on the same spot. And I'm talking animals like deer. And, of course, livestock owners don't want these wolves in their area. However, it is beneficial for the wild. We need apex predators in order to properly diversify the grazers.
'The Lynx is a highly elusive and nocturnal creature'
Next scene: Lynx sits feet away from presenter in broad daylight.
Idk wat the deal was there ...it had to be tame....i live in B.C. Canada...in an isolated community where the Lynx population is high. I have seen mountain lions several times. I've lived here 40yrs...I've never seen a Lynx. To suggest they promote tourism is absurd. A WILD lynx would never sit on log in day light in front of humans.
Exactly !!!
I have a friend who years ago had a pet lynx she found when he was so young she bottle fed him So he was a huge pet , but even with people he didn't know , could be in same room and not know it. He was not timid by any means , he just was very selective about who he showed himself to
Bears, wolves and lynxes should BE reintroduced INTO the UK!
We might need more forest before we get the wolves but I agree with you 100%.
Filipe Matias Well keep your pets indoors , another stupid idea by the woolly hat brigade , do they really think they will stay in the wild areas when there is much easier prey lower down , and when they move into urban areas cat dogs etc are like takeaways .
Wolves and lynxes yes once we increase there habitats..... bears 🐻 would be Awsome but I think the public would not go for that
elizabeth taylor it’s a stupid idea yet there’s tigers in Bangladesh living in the streets and there perfectly fine and we asked them to take care of their animals yet we can’t even protect are landscape or even reintroduce a lynx let alone a fucking tiger. We need natural predators to keep a balance in the ecosystem like wolves like lynx and even bears, deer populations on the rise and culling inefficient look at Yellowstone national park thriving with biodiversity and all are national parks are basically one big sheep farm of over grazing hills. Don’t you think farming has gone a bit too far. Not saying we should stop farming by any means but they need to step farming back a bit in Britain.
Agree 100%
In Bosnia we have wolves,lynx,brown and black bears and atacks on humans are nonexistent and very rare on shee0
Black bears? Where did they come from?
@@istvanglock7445 Melanism. They're probably very dark Eurasian Brown bears.
Black bears aren't native to Bosnia
@@glenncordova4027 probebly what steve said, they do look black though
Lynx have been reintroduced to Switzerland's Alpine regions since 1971. I have myself had an enchanting 'encounter' with a juvenile lynx in the area of Untertrübsee in Engelberg in the Central Swiss Alps one night back in the 1990s driving to Alp Arni Wang and back to the hut we had been tenants of for years. It was the only time I ever saw a lynx in the flesh and never have I heard that they had been a major threat to the more than 600 sheep in the small area of Alp Ober Arni. There are plenty of chamois up there and other wild animals that the lynx can feed on, especially the weaker ones that would most probably not survive anyway, and certainly not the alpine winter.
The Scottish sheep farmer is only talking of his own profit and .. wow! Three lambs in each ewe??? Pheeew! I thought three lambs would be the exception but he is talking as if it were normal. It is not only about the tourist's daylight entertainment. The introduction of the lynx is much more important to the environment than the personal profit of a farmer, no offense. I understand that we all have to make our living and how tough it is in Scotland especially. It is, however, possible to include the lynx in one's tourist programs, be it a nocturnal animal or not. I don not, although, think it right to show them off like in a circus as it is being done in Germany's Harz region. It is a wild animal and it should be allowed to live a natural life.
In Germany's Harz region, they live like wild animals. Only one was shown off to tourists to try to lure them into visiting the park.
You make a lot of sense, thank you. Lynxes are magnificent.
No animal should have to be
"reintroduced" to a region. That country should of protected their wildlife in the first place.
@@josephinemitchell1307 excellent comment and so true.
The lynx that were reintroduced in the Harz were zoo-bred (most other projects use cats caught from wild populations elsewhere).
They spend years to get the animals to unlearn their zoo-animals' behaviours.
The four lynx that are shown in the enclosure are the ones who "failed" that training (too friendly to humans and so on), so they could not be released.
So instead they keep them in the large enclosures (they got way more space than they would get in most normal zoos).
“Its beautiful, its powerful and its totally at one”
The actual lynx: “Could u just leave me alone mate” 5:06
Living and shooting in North Devon all my early life I've seen 4 lynx and one even bigger black cat. but every time it's aways been that i was by luck down wind of them and still for long periods, i think you would never see one if you were moving. Honestly it was scary until i realised the cats were more scared of me than i was them. As for the black cat i was shaking but again when it spotted me it ran off. Three things, they are beautiful big, much bigger than you would imagine, and like ghosts you never hear them I consider myself really lucky.
U saw a black cat, like a black leopard? Why would they be in England?
@@charlietaylor4835 released pets. There are regular sightings in North Yorkshire.
@@masheda87 so you just saw a big house cat? Or like a cat released from a circus or zoo?
@@charlietaylor4835 no people keep exotic cats as pets too. I haven’t seen any but I know a few who have claimed to see a Jaguar sized black cat. A friend of mine watched one kill sheep in the field behind her house.
@@Steves_fish chill out mate I just didn’t know about 🤣
another great promotion for #rewildling, thanks, added to our playlist
They were never wiped out, the lynx has always been here, greatly reduced numbers but still here! People have been seeing and reporting them for yrs now! We have too many deer and they are eating all the new new young trees so we need more lynx or the wolves to be reintroduced to keep the natural balance!
Susan Stocks im a keen bushcrafter and have seen them a few times over the yrs, i know where they are but not sure if they are breeding tho, im sure ive been near the lair because the smell is the same as a big cat enclosure at the zoo, pungent.! I keep the locations to myself because i like the fact they are here and want to keep it that way so best if we all keep the locations of our sightings to ourselves, for the sake of the animal and our WILDlife!
@Apple Pie yes and with any luck they’d eat aggressive people like you!! You come here for a conversation or a fight?
@Apple Pie and you are obviously well uninformed about wolves and humans living together! Its happening in plenty of other countries and has done for centuries! Probably no point trying to explain this to you tho!!!
@Apple Pie 👌🏻
I saw a Lynx back in the mid 80's. By the Basingstoke canal in Surrey. I was driving in the early hours. Saw it clear as day.
There is a fairly large population of lynx in Sweden, still it’s such a rare thing to see them that those who do see one and who manage to snap a photo of it end up in the local paper. If Britain reintroduces them, you won’t even know they’re there.
Any updates on this rewilding effort?
Not happening. Too much opposition from farming groups.
People saying lynx should not come back to the UK are some of the same people who own big dogs like pitbull type breeds which are far more likely to attack some one.
Bring em back. I live in the Forest of Dean and people are still crying over the wild boar (who need a natural predator) so it won't happen here hopefully Scotland though. We need to learn to coexist with animals and plant more trees.
Me and my friends call the Forest of Dean the forest of doom lol he got chased by a boar 🐗 luckily he’s ok 👍🏻 lol
If you want to control the boar population, the lynx is of little help. Lynx only go after boars if all else fails since boars are quite dangerous to a solitary cat.
You need wolves for that.
@@gerdforster883Aust then let's introduce wolves back to the UK then and the bear.
I agree, wild bore need a natural predator, but sadly, people have just cut the Forest of Dean back way too much for wolves, bears and lynx, it makes me sad to see how much people have ruined the UK's natural beauty and once rich wild life.
What about the big cat species already living here, such as panthers, pumas & also, Eurasian lynx? Presumably lynx are already here with these other big cat species? I've heard it said that they want to go beyond reintroducing native species, to actually introducing non native species from other parts of the world?
They have now successfully done bison and boar
no chance as long as the SNP, just look at the beaver hysteria
I’m from Canada, we have many medium sizes wildcats, they generally stay away from ranches and human settlements and they rarely ever attack livestock
This has to happen we need lynx... and we got rid of wolves, bears and all threats including Eagles, I’m glad we have now brought eagles back to the UK though and Beavers
Yep beavers have been reintroduced near where I live 👍👍
Eagles? I've known Kites to have been reintroduced but never heard about eagles as well.
@@khalil7011 eagles can be found in the north of Scotland now
@@khalil7011 yeah sea eagles in Scotland, they are huge...
We have Kestrels in our local town hall's tower now. They have also made their own nests in a few mobile towers around the town. They are absolutely decimating the pigeons. Which was the idea but I don't think anybody thought they would be as industrious as they have proven. Its awesome to watch them swoop out of the sky just not so fun if your right underneath and get peppered with pigeon heads.
Great movie. Good luck with your rewilding projects in the UK. Greetings from Germany. Hans-Martin
One of my favourite places and it's great to see Lynx back in the Hartz mountains.
Bring back the t rex
👏👏👏👏👏😂😂😂😂💀
bang a gong , get it on .
Bring back megalodon into the lake district
Lynx have never been known to give problems to humans... They are beautiful...
They are already here,I had the good fortune to see one in Painswick Wood,UK, back in the 1990's . Totally unexpected left my partner and myself gobsmacked for a moment before we turned to each other and confirmed what we had both seen to each other.
I've met people who saw big cats in Devon in the '90s, not lynx but possibly puma. I believe some of these big cats have been released in the past although I'm skeptical as to whether there are breeding populations in the UK as some claim.
Excellent teaching resource. Just knowing lynx are out there and having the slimmest chance of a sighting - even seeing scat - would be enough to make me visit.
Going to Brasov for 3 nights for this exact reason in two weeks time :-)
@Susan Stocks The lynx is not the UK (if that's what you're saying).
@Susan Stocks Where have you seen one? If they were here, there would be more evidence of them. George Monibot suggests in Feral that people 'see' large cats when none are there as a legacy of our evolution alongside dangerous, big cats in Africa.
I love how it's the LYNX, which was hunted out of existence by humans, whose numbers need to be reduced instead of the farmers taking responsibility for their own property, according to the german guy. Why can't he get some guard animals such as dogs or even donkeys?
I saw a wild Lynx in the UK in the late 1990's in a wooded area in Surrey
You sure about that?
@@RealEyesRealiseRealLies yes 100%!! My friends uncle was a grounds keeper for a large mansion, the owner was an Arab guy who only used it a few weeks in the summer so me and my friend would go there to play around on the land... There was a wooded area we were walking through all a sudden we spotted the Lynx on a fallen tree we were only around 30 meters from it, we were scared as hell, we slowly backed away and then ran. We both saw it, we both reacted in the same 'oh shit' scared way without saying anything to each other, we both instinctively knew big cat = bad lol. Only when we got back to the house did we talk about what we saw and later tell our parents. To this day I have no doubt it was a Lynx, clear as day!
@@RealEyesRealiseRealLies They're all over the UK, there are many in Derbyshire/Yorkshire
I say bring the Lynx back they were absolutely wiped out unnecessarily by human beings and they deserve to roam the places that they belong to and are a natural part of the ecosystem 💯🇮🇪
Fuck Ireland
They deserve😄
Lynx never existed in Ireland
@@rubbygarlicson1048 yes they did live in Ireland
Maybe you should save the only predator left the Scottish wild cat first.
indeed adding lynx would add another predetor out performing it and maybe eating the wild cat already here
Wildcats do better in parts of Europe that they share with lynx.
They usually have separate prey, and lynx don't readily predate on other predators when there's better prey about
I’ve just been walking my dog and there was a paw print the size of my hand and No dog has a paw print that thick and wide so I believe a lynx is in the area I live in North England so if there’s lynx in Scotland what’s to say they can’t travel south into England
Brilliant idea. With a healthy ecosystem predation on livestock would be minimal
A friend of mine came upon one last summer near Ringstead Northants.
Fishing a lake, walking around at 11.30pm, wearing a headtorch with a red light. Walked around a corner and saw 2 big glowing eyes reflected at 10-15yds. Stood still for a few seconds wondering what it was, then turned red light to white, at which point he saw exactly what was standing looking at him! Stood for 10-15 seconds, then silently leapt over a fence and gone. He saw the tufty ears, size /markings and the bobtail. The size and power of its muscular legs struck him the most!
He shit himself, went back to his bivvy and zipped himself in! He thought about calling the police to tell them! He spoke to the owner / farmer of the lakes, but he'd never heard of any sightings or livestock kills. He says it was 100% a Lynx, he is a keen nature lover like myself and watches any documentaries about animals.
Saw one running along the verge about 8 miles north of Norwich Norfolk, around 11pm last September whilst driving home. I had it down to about 10 metres before it darted through an opening and turned to look back at me from just inside the field, I could clearly see it was a Lynx. One was captured in Norwich in the 1990s, so they may already be here breeding in the area. I am also keen on nature and 100% sure of what I saw.
Sweden, Finland and Norway all have lynx, wolves and bears. They do not pose any threat to humans. They do take sheep, occasionally, but a study from Denmark, where the wolf recently returned as well, although none of the other two, shows that it's far more common that dogs running unleashed attacks sheep, than wolves.
North Macedonia is doing all they can to save the Balkan Lynx (around 30 left) from extinction.
There are many places in the UK were the lynx could survive, the only issue is that many of our wilder places are crissed-crossed with roads, and traffic and the lynx don't mix too well.
We have bobcats in our city park. They are as big as my dog and I have seen them within 40 feet and coyotes as well.
Only in britan you not have baers wolves and linky
Linky ?
But we have wombles
The lynx is still here been reporting just very endangered and hard to find
You forgot Wolverines
Once there are more forests in Britain bring back lynx first, them see how the public handle large predators, then bring back other predators such as wolves maybe bear, and other native species like Elk, boar and others.
Theres actually a small population of elk in Scotland I believe
@Adam Peake You realise we have over twice the forest cover in the UK that we had 100 years ago? Introducing wolves and bear in the UK is a ludicrous idea.
@@notdaveschannel9843 I would be weary of introducing wolves and bears as they're generally aggressive creatures but Lynxs never go out of their way to harm humans. Having a propulation of lynx to balance the deer population would be of great benefit to the ecosystem.
@@afthefragile The stats on lynx predation of sheep that I've seen are pretty varied but they'd definintely take some sheep. The best way to control deer is with a rifle but a government plan to encourage deerstalking wouldn't be very popular in a country that's so sentimental about animals.
@@notdaveschannel9843 Having a guard dog looking aftrer the sheep and some electrical fencing would be easy deterrants for most wild animals to attack sheep but that would mean the farmers will have to pay more for these things which they aren't willing to do. A Lynx would rather go for a rabbit or deer which are just as abundant rather than have to risk dealing with electrical fences and angry dogs to get their meal. In most of Europe farmers have to deal with a lot more than just a couple of skittish shy lynxes, you've got wolves, bears, wolverines, and they manage fine. Shooting deer will only reduce their numbers but it wont change their behaviour. Having a predator changes the way the deer behave where they stay constantly on the move and avoid staying in one area for a long time, this is what ultimately allows the natural forests to regenerate, not just having less deer, but deer spending less time grazing in one particular area.
The UK has got predators like the wildcats, foxes, pine martins, badgers, owls, otters ect that need protection from hunters/poachers.
I went to northern Sweden in 2015 I remember seeing these beautiful cats in their natural habitat, I say introduce them already it's nothin but a good thing, our great woodlands need a apex predator
Where in scotland are they in that interview with the lake in the background?
I saw a very shaggy beaver last night.
It still knocks on my door at 4 in the morning for a stroke
🤣
Lynx have never been extinct in the Uk , I’ve seen one and so have a few people I know . How these people know so little what lives in our countryside is astounding .
Someone i spoke to, claims he saw one in West Sussex while out walking his dog. Who knows? It's possible. It's a fact that we now have puma, panther/leopard and lynx all breeding wild, in the UK. Lynx are of course, a native species.
Lynx hunts foxes, less foxes to kill livestock. Plus, cats are smart, they would not risk losing prey out in the open, it defies sense.
Wouldn't they just eat livestock aswell?
Its not that simple my friend, the ecosystem is a complex web. E.g. a population boom of lynx. they would need to turn to food sources other than deer/foxes - having livestock available, there would be nothing to stop the further increase of lynx population
@@UpliftedBrother yep its a much more complicated situation than people are willing to admit. The reintroduction of lynx would definitely mean lots of livestock get eaten
@@UpliftedBrother it should be fine, here in the UK the deer, foxes etc. have no natural predators here because we wiped them all out centuries ago, which is what started this campaign of reintroducing native animals. Remember, these kinds of animals have been predating their natural prey for thousands of years before we started breeding sheep en mass.
Lynx definitely do NOT hunt foxes, no carnivore hunts another carnivore for food it's unnatural. They might kill a fox that comes it's way but not go out it's way to look for foxes to eat.
Introducing lynx and wolves back into the wild is needed
Are Bobcats and Lynxes one and the same thing?
No different species, bobcats are smaller - more southern latitudes in USA. Lynx different species in Europe and Asia to America & generally more northern.
@@PeterSmithRewilding Thank you.
Would like to know how many people here actually live in rural UK.
It varies significantly from Scotland to England but for the vast majority of the UK it's going to be a lot more densely populated than most European areas where wild Lynx still persist .. 🤔 so I suppose that problem encounters between people, their livestock and Lynx might be expected to happen a little more often than many enthusiasts basing their opinion on data from mainland Europe would like to suggest.
Not that I think lynx are really an issue for people, they're not exactly big cats after all, but I think they probably would take a lot more sheep than some would suggest.
Yes, lets ask the farmer with the totally 'impartial' opinion.
I've yet to meet a farmer who isn't a money hungry prick.
Their opinion is more valuable than yours because they live right where lynxes could be reintroduced, and they could threaten their livelihood.
@@ColKlinkerhofen how many farmers have you met.
well yeah they asked someone totally in favour of lynx so gotta ask someone against it lmao
Where I live there are lynxes wolfes and bears but I've never heard about any attack on stock animal by the lynx.
If the lynx is reintroduced to the UK, then the UK really will have big cats in its countryside
Come on, they are already living and thriving in the uk. That's widely accepted now.
@@S.Trades yeah, you're right dude
Personally I think they should be introduced back into this country.
I'm certainly no expert but have a fascination with big cats so know a bit.
In other European counties they discovered that livestock only make up around 3 percent of lynx diets.
However, they will predate on foxes which do a hell of a lot of damage to sheep and lambs.
Obviously it's a complex issue but farmers who claim there are already some bigs cats in the UK seem to tolerate some stock losses because of the apparent reduction in fox and badger numbers.
Also the deer population in this country is huge so an apex predator would restore a natural balance to our countryside.
Food for thought.
So, if the lynx that escaped from Borth zoo on the very edge of the forested and very sparsely populated mountains of north Wales had to be 'humanely destroyed' because the local council received advice that the risk to public safety had "increased to severe", how do we conclude that releasing them in the UK is safe?
And how does that address the question that I raised?
We seem to be getting mixed messages from the BBC then because almost every word in my original post was culled from their website. Actually, a lynx is perfectly capable of taking down human prey (especially a child) and I'd personally rather not see the Eurasian Lynx in the UK.I would however support the introduction of the Iberian lynx which is smaller, closer to out own now extinct species and endangered and in need of all the extra habitat that can be made available to it.
I don't doubt your conviction or sincerity but you have to appreciate that without tangible evidence, your personal perceptions hold no evidential value at all.
It's not just you, either, my own father recalls a big cat encounter at a distance of less than 3m when walking his dogs in the Wyre forest and he is a shooter who knows his wildlife. Regardless of how much I think he believes his account, I can't accept it without evidence - and evidence can be had as was recently shown with the Staffordshire pine martins.
I believe that he saw something and I believe that he is sincere in his interpretation.
Lets remove the lynx from the equation and suppose he was telling me that he saw a miniature elephant.
Which is more likely......that he actually saw and is reporting the sighting of a diminutive temperate pachyderm or that some error in visual processing or memory storage has caused him to erroneously believe that he had seen such a beastie?
If there had been TV coverage of supposed tiny heffalumps featuring self appointed "experts", would that make an interpretive error more or less likely?
Same logic applies to Bigfoot, to UFOs and to God claims.
I don't care about someone's sincerity, social standing or experience, if they haven't got tangible evidence, their eyewitness testimony counts for very little.
There you go, throwing your rattle out of the pram and demonstrating exactly why scepticism is required.
I'm not "smugly getting great pleasure in ridiculing mocking and poking fun at those who have witnessed such things", I'm simply pointing out that human beings a fallible and prone to cognitive error and bias - and that the only way to counter those fallibilities is to demand significant evidence to support significant claims and to require extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
As to my father's report, I don't doubt that he saw something (he described it only as a big cat that was black and growled) but why should I not hold him to the same evidential standards to which I would hold a stranger?
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Bring back the mammoth and the sabre tooth tiger.
While the views of farmers should be taken into account there is a related aspect to all of this that never gets mentioned. It is the imminent changes in food production technology. I doubt farms as we have known them for 6,000 years will be around much longer. In the near future large areas of land won't be needed and re-wilding initiatives will reclaim large areas of the world.
Britannia used to be home to large macropredators such as wolves, bears, big cats, and hyenas. She also used to be home to colossal herbivores such as bison, rhinos, and elephants. Now the largest predator and prey are the red fox and red deer respectively.
The reintroduction of the lynx would be a great step in the right direction towards rebuilding the natural ecosystem of this great island.
We should all get together and sign one huge partition, we want the UK LYNX back....
I know once theyvare deemed safe for home use. Im buying me 2 and i dont care how much they cost... you get a cat, dog and home security all in one package. Epicness. And just imagine walking through town with a pin stripe suit and 2 of these big paw pussycats. Hard pimping. Thats just cool. Real COOL... and you guys know it.!!!
A partition is an internal wall in a a house
So are they or not?
Has it happened ?
Would they attack the already endangered wild cat though?
Overall they would reduce predation on wildcats by cutting fox population. In Germany wildcats have flourished in areas where lynx have returned
@@PeterSmithRewilding well hopefully we bring them back
There is mounting evidence that there are already big cats living wild in the UK
@Richard Williams yes, following the introduction of the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act many exotic 'big cats' such as leopards, puma were realised into the rural parts of the UK - due to people not being able to afford the license fees. Thus overtime, with the uncontrolled dear populations existing in many of the UK's rural areas prey has not been hard to find... sightings have increased linearly with time and this is thought to be due to the small populations now being able to breed. Leopards etc are so highly adaptable living in all sorts of ecosystems including 'urban leopards' in India - so theoretically there existence is probable. However, hard evidence is minimal despite multiple scat findings, footprint casts and 3-4 incidents of big cat roadkill.
The average lynx (except those from Siberia) weigh barely 20kg, hardly a 'big' cat.
It's totally fine many animals used to be able to run away from predators, what I'm saying is, it would balance itself out and probably no animal race would go extinct
The animals that live in the UK wilderness today
Foxes, Badgers, Robins, Owls, Hedgehogs, Ferrets, Deers, Otters, Beavers, Squirrels, Red squirrels, Falcons, Scottish wild cats, Voles, Moles, Curlews, Herons, Ducks, Pheasants, Sparrows, Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Tits, Grey seals, Fin whale, Mice, Rats, Shrews, Grass snakes, Rabbits, Hares, Bats, Polecats, Frogs, Toads, Pikes, Minks, Pine Martens, Spoonbills, Adders, Walrus, Pelicans and Panthers(The beast of Bodmin Moore)
The Animals that used to live in the UK wilderness
Bears, Wolves, Irish Elks, Bisons, Wild Horses, Lynxes, Saiga antelopes, Aurochses, Great Auks, Woolly Mammoths, Lemmings, Cave Lions, Cave Hyenas, Arctic Foxes, Barbary Macaques, Burbot, Houtings, Western Green lizards, Terrapins, Cranes, Dalmatian Pelicans, European ice age leopards, European Jaguars, Grey Whales, Musk Rats and Homotherium(Scimitar-toothed cat)
Scottish wild cats are a joke mate cos they interbreed with domestic cats! I wouldn't even bother wasting conservation funds on them or any wild animal that can interbreed with domestic pets!
Germany does this kind of thing so well, and begins with education which is fundamental to the success of any reintroduction program
Apwopwiate weintwoduction into the UK. But what does this mean in pwactice?
This makes me laugh. We know that there are already 'big cats' including lynx living wild in the UK quite successfully and breeding. What I don't understand is why defra won't man up and admit it despite all of the sightings throughout the country.
The UK big cat issue is all about the rewilding Green Agenda mate, so what you say is very true!
With camera traps and everyone having a mobile, they are, like me, waiting for photographic evidence. Or even the evidence of a roadkill. Very odd.
I saw a puma once in Devon, but when i got close, it was just an oversized farmyard cat. A trick of the light and my imagination.
@@connoroleary591 there has been several cats killed on the roads mate. An photographic evidence of them.
Because the farmers would immediately set out to kill them all.
Britain needs more forest for a start.
And introducing a Lynx would help in increasing the size of forests. One of the biggest reason forests don't grow in UK is because of all the deer that roam freely and eat up any young shoots preventing forests from regrowing. If a few Lynx can control the deer population, the it'll take the pressure of the forest ecosystems and allow them to rejuvinate.
We have lynx, cougars and bobcats in Canada. Nobody seems to mind them.
What about wolves
If you are worried about your sheep, adopt a Livestock Guardian Dog or two. They in turn adopt the herd as if they were their own puppies and will definitely fight off a Lynx. The North-West Farm Terrier comes to mind. Or, if you live in the EU, the Greek Shepard.
Futurecare Design A terrier would have no chance against one .
@@elizabethtaylor9321 The NWFT is a specific breed of livestock guardian dog. You might be interested to Google them.
Horrible to see all the dead animals around, animals that you have for the purpose of being killed. I think he meant it was horrible to see a loss of profits.
It’s crazy that no mainstream parties have big plans on rewilding and national parks, we should really be taking care of our island and reintroducing the diversity we lost.
This needs to happen same with the wolfs
I live in a area with a ton of Canadian Lynx. You would not know they were there, but if you travel the dirt roads enough you will eventually see one. We do get tourists wanting to specifically see Lynx and a good guide can usually find one for them, no guarantee though. They will spend top dollar Canadian Lynx are smaller and can be a pest with chickens. We have a predator balance with wolves, cougar and bears as well. Apart from bears, any livestock damage is no questions asked compensated with cash on the spot, this keeps the farmers happy. Cougars with sheep and calves are the main problem and this is still very uncommon though. Most predators prefer their natural prey. We have huge populations of hares, deer and elk so the predators are well fed and rarely visit the farms.
I would love a companion Lynx in my home. I say bring them back XD
If you brought them back you need watch them because all the idiots would try dog hunt them
Get livestock guardian dogs! That’s all you need to protect your sheep
there are lynx in the UK, I know that because i seen one where i live in the north east of England, or at least a hybrid of one as well as a caracal hybrid that was grey in colour, I also know others that have leopard type cats up north. So how can they say reintroduce these cats when they are already here.
Where in the north east did you spot it buddy?
I live in the Northeast and I have never once seen one you should get ya eyes checked mate
wow so sika is now a thing there?????? that very bad
@@H8M0ndays yall better do that
Bring them back
They were here before us
An holistic approach is needed to ensure there would be no human/wildlife conflict, "hefted" livestock would have to be replaced by herded (high density grazing) with possible night corrals, or alternatively, guard dogs to keep the Lynx away from sheep and calves. We managed cattle and sheep on an extensive property (conservancy) with African lynx and leopards amongst the predators, so know this can work if properly planned and managed.
Lynx to not prey on cattle or calves. Most calves are not in the fields anyway in the UK, they are in barns for veal or meat. Only danger might be young sheep. However, Lynx kill any foxes on their territory, and foxes kill more lambs than a lynx could... so it would be an asset to the farmer! They also control pests like deer and rabbits... again an benefit.
Already seen 2 of these in the UK
If Rabbit make up most of their diet then they would be competing against the Scottish Wildcat, already a threatened species. Does anyone think of how awful it would be to see any end up as 'roadkill'?
I love cat's but what about lambs?
They are so beautiful!