The Eurasian lynx, an original native of the British Isles once roamed much of Western Europe.
Sadly habitat destruction and persecution by man saw the last of the British lynx disappear around 500 AD.
The Lynx UK Trust charity is planning to reintroducing the lynx back by releasing them into Scotland.
The lynx is a solitary and secretive animal posing no threat to humans. It eats deer and smaller mammals such as rabbit and hare, although they are capable of killing sheep and other livestock.
Some say their presence in the countryside 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.
With a 350,000 deer population in Scotland, lynx are a natural predator which will help to maintain the ecology:
Writing in the Sun, Packham says: "Lynxes weigh in at up to 30kgs, or almost 5st, and their preferred prey is roe deer. With 350,000 of these deer in Scotland alone there’s plenty of food out there for them — they would eat about 60 each a year.
"But would or could they hurt us? Emphatically no. These cats are so secretive that their presence can go unnoticed for years.
Have they ever attacked humans? There are no authenticated attacks by healthy wild lynxes on humans.
"Would they kill livestock? Yes, sheep, sporadically and in predictable and controllable ways which can thus be managed. But already the “scaremongers” have piped up with mistruths and mischief.
"Is it too much to ask that those who wish to debate and decide the project are aware of the realities of living with lynxes and of their real ecology and behaviour?
So let’s exclude the opinions of the ill-informed and narrow-minded and get on with making the UK a better place for wildlife."
So far the reintroduction into other European countries have been a remarkable success, with the best managed programs constructing whole new eco-friendly industries such as wildlife tourism.
The Lynx UK Trust is made up of a group of conservationists with specialisations in areas such as field research, ecology, biology, genetics and captive breeding: they are determined to return a sustainable population to the UK over the next decade.
They are currently engaged in a range of research to identify the sub-species of lynx most closely related to the extinct British form, and assessing sites throughout the British Isles for their feasibility as release locations and ongoing habitats for lynx.
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