There has been a lot of interest in rewilding and planting trees in Scotland. As supportive as I am of this, part of me worries that it’s doomed to struggle if we don’t reintroduce predators to manage the deer numbers that have (along with humans) caused so much ecological destruction across Scotland.

Yellowstone reintroduced wolves to the park, and already it’s showing benefits. However I know time and time again that reintroducing predators such as wolves is pushed back by financial interests. I’m interested in hearing from folks and their perspectives.

Will we ever see bears, lynx and wolves again in Scotland?

by MissSephy

30 comments

  1. I think the posh landowners who like shooting stuff will do their dinger about releasing predators who aren’t them as it will interrupt their income stream. Personally, I like the idea, and we have the environment to support wolves, lynx, etc.

  3. I support it and think it is a great idea. But we cant just willy nilly release wolves. There needs to be the infrastructure around them. I visited the Sea Eagle conservation area in Mull a few years back and they fully show what can happen when reintroduction is supported. 
    I look forward to more animals being reintroduced 

  4. Lynx, no problem.

    Wolves are a totally different game.

    Wolves have massive territorial ranges, and there just aren’t any areas that could accommodate them sustainably given the paucity of contiguous habitat and overlapping land uses.

    There was some talk about doing a trial reintroduction on an island like Rum, but even that is far too small for a single pack.

    In 50-100 years, when we’ve hopefully replenished many Scottish forests, there could be a good case for it, but I can’t only see it working in a large, fenced-off park for now.

  6. I wish people would stop talking about wolves. It simply isn’t going to happen and the debate around wolves is souring the entire conversation about rewilding.

    Rewilding is about far, far more than the apex predators, it’s about creating diverse, robust and equilibrious ecosystems at every level. Yes there are too many deer, but as long as it’s in estates’ best interest to keep numbers up, there will always be too many deer. Yes there are too many sheep, but as long as we fail to present an alternative to crofters there will continue to be too many sheep.

    I’m in favour of predator reintroduction but we aren’t ready for it yet as a society. I can see lynx reintroduction within my lifetime, but not wolves. So let’s concentrate on something more realistic instead.

    Edit: And to those downvoting, this is literally the stance of just about everyone I know working in the conservation sector in Scotland today. You might not like it but this is the way things are. Wolves are sexy and cool but talking about them is completely counterproductive. These are simply the facts of the situation.

  8. We need to replenish our forests first so they have enough space

  11. Wolves I don’t see happening but Lynx? Yeah let’s do that one.

  12. Ok with anything that can’t eat me while camping, so no.

    Downvote me all you want, at least I am transparent

  13. No thanks.

    I would rather not be lower down in the food chain than I already am. While the reintroduction of predators sounds very noble and worthy for the planet it also means that you are putting predators in the countryside that would not only happily eat the deer you talk of but also the sheep, cows and people they come by.

    Controlled culls are the key. Scotland is 10x bigger than Yellowstone Park but it has far more settlements dispersed through it having wild bears, lynx and wolves running through our villages and small towns is not a thing you want.

  14. Honestly the way things are going in 25 years the wolves will have domesticated themselves

  15. The issue with species reintroduction is twofold: ecological feasibility and public perception.

    Bears? Not a chance. They need a lot more space to roam than we have available, and are known killers of people. They fail on both.

    Lynx, by and large, pass on both fronts. It’s just a question of weighting – those who mostly oppose it are landowners/farmers who are worried about livestock. That’s fair, and we need to consider compensation. I’d love to see them reintroduced safely and legally in my lifetime. That absolute plonker who dumped them free earlier this year just wanted to make a statement at the expense of the animals’ welfare.

    Wolves would be more ecologically feasible than you’d think, but public perception is just not good. They’re one of the most overly vilified predators when you consider their impact. It’s the beast from our childhood fairytales. I’d love to see them roam wild, but I just can’t see it happening in the UK.

  16. Lynx is workable.

    Bears probably not.

    The problem is that in cases where you have the re-introduction of a predatory species you also have a corresponding politic. (mostly based on lazyness, stupidity and greed)

    If the scot gov announced lynx was going to be re-introduced to basically try help to fix the shit sterile environment we live in, asshats would exert political force to compel them to also introduce an ‘insurance fund’ to pay morons for all of the sheep lynx don’t actually eat.

    At that point what you’ll be doing is finding out lynx attack an awful lot of sheep, even whilst being a few hundred miles away from the sheep and the few lynx that were actually introduced would be shot by games keepers who didn’t work for anyone on no ones land.

    Wolves would be even more expensive cos you’d need to pay the counter sniper teams to follow them about and protect them.

    The problem has never been the animals.

  17. Aye they making rifles easier for hikers to openly carry too?

  19. Just a reminder that widespread, large scale sheep farming has only been in Scotland since the late 18th century, so sheep farmers who claim that their “ancient way of life” is threatened by wolves are using a pretty dubious definition of ancient. Wolves have been in Scotland since the last Ice Age, reckon they have fair claim to at least some of it.

  20. I know Paul Lister wanted to do it. Over 10 years ago now but I stayed at Alladale for work https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alladale_Wilderness_Reserve

    The short version is his dad started DFS or one of the furniture stores, saw IKEA coming so sold it all. Left millions to his kids, one being Paul. He wanted to plant trees, like your link but not elk, red deer. They destroy the young trees and we’ve got loads of these deer, so the estates get a number they can cull each season.

    So Paul wanted to introduce wolves. Obviously this wouldn’t be safe to begin with so they wanted to put up some form of fencing. This took a lot of flack from the Cameron McNeish who was VP of Ramblers Scotland and essentially said the fence would violate the land act.

    The fence also had a grey area of being a zoo or not and it’s illegal to put a predator and prey together in a zoo. Is my understanding.

    So there have certainly been attempts.

  21. I’ve been hearing this for thirty years and we’re no closer. People are too risk averse and the government are never going to allow something like this.

  22. I’m out and about all the time and quite happy that the only things to worry about biting me, my pets or kids are insects and adders. I see it as a big plus that we have almost nothing capable of fucking us up.

    I wonder much time the people calling for shit like wolves and bears to be reintroduced actually spend outside.

  23. They should reintroduce forests first.

    MAGA – Make Alba Green Again.

  25. eagles and other species that were managed well (like otters and geese) are quite controversial. I can’t see wolves being popular. how that sit with the ‘right to roam? the proponents of this are often people who are not from Scotland or the Highlands and just see it as this empty space. as Neil Gunn said should the Highkands be viewed as a ‘lung’ for the cities?

  26. Will be good.

    Until the first idiot that tries to be one with the wolves gets nomed on.

    Wolves don’t bother me people do.

  27. There is a novel about this called Once There Were Wolves that you may enjoy.

  28. This has been discussed fairly seriously for decades now and the biggest opposition as always is farmers/land owners who will never support it for commercial reasons.

    Unfortunately, that group is significantly more powerful and influential than the environmental and ecological groups that argue for reintroduction. Until we have either a government willing to ignore those groups (unlikely), or a workable solution that caters to everyone (expensive, and therefore unlikely) I don’t see it actually happening sadly.

  29. Don’t listen to the naysayers in this comment section saying extensive work in rewilding would be required prior to doing this. Re-introducing large carnivores can have broad-sweeping impacts on ecosystems

    Outside of the southern belt Scotland is vast and fairly minimally populated. Wolves are smart and would not come into contact with local human populations and would likely keep a great distance from them anyway

    A study demonstrating the tremendous impact it can jave published just yesterday, very interesting:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112725004499?via%3Dihub#:~:text=In%202020%E2%80%9321%2C%2043%20%25,varied%20widely%20across%20northern%20Yellowstone.

  30. It’s very rare but wolves do attack, I support bringing them back though. The government would have to introduce something so that people can defend themselves if they are attacked which is a whole other problem.

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