THE Lynx UK Trust are to apply to Scottish Natural Heritage for licences to bring six Eurasian lynx to private unfenced estates in Aberdeenshire.
Flickr/Mike Seamons
The Lynx UK Trust are to apply to Scottish Natural Heritage for licences to bring six Eurasian lynx to private unfenced estates in Aberdeenshire.
Their movements will be monitored but farmers fear the lynx would kill sheep.
Last month a survey of 9000 people, carried out with support from the University of Cumbria, found that 91 per cent backed a trial reintroduction of the animal.
Andrew Clark, the National Farmers Union’s director of policy, said: “The NFU would be concerned at the re-introduction of lynx due to the cost involved and high risk
of failure. Budgets are better focussed on developing existing biodiversity.”
The move comes as the slightly smaller Iberian lynx has been saved from extinction after being reintroduced in Spain and Portugal.
There were 100,000 of the animals at the beginning of the 20th Century, but just 52 mature individuals in 2002. By 2012 there were 156 of the cats, which are bred in captivity and released in a £24million programme partly funded by the European Union.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature yesterday downgraded the Iberian lynx from the “critically endangered” to the “endangered” category on the red list of threatened species.
Paul O’Donoghue, chief scientific adviser of the Lynx UK Trust, said the success of the Iberian lynx project showed that the animals were “perfectly able to co-exist with humans in modern Europe”.
He added: “There is no threat to humans and they have attracted huge amounts of tourism, something we are looking to emulate.”
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