The fact that a proposal to reintroduce European Lynx to some areas of the UK is being treated seriously, only serves to highlight that short-sightedness is nearly always accompanied by poor memory. The idea has been floated as a possible answer to the epidemic of deer now causing widespread damage to woodlands and crops. Whilst it is easy to understand how the suggestion might appeal to large sections of a public spoon fed a diet of cutesy nature programmes shot in soft focus, the fact that some serious minded individuals are willing to entertain the proposal gives cause for alarm. To understand why one needs to remember the partula snail. What happened to the 76 species of partula once found on Tahiti, shows the folly that usually follows when man comes up with a great wheeze in the way of natural control. Having first introduced (possibly accidentally, possibly not) the African land snail to the island and then watched it munch its way through the landscape, the chaps came up with the idea to bring in the carnivorous Florida rosy wolf snail using the logic that it would gobble up its bigger cousin. Instead Rosy started tucking into to the locals so that by the time the alarms bells rang, 64 of the partula species had gone forever.
The lesson here is that predators when offered a choice, in the case of the Lynx, between one prey which can run fast and has big pointy things on its head and something slow and trapped in a confined area with no means of defence like sheep for example, well, you know the answer. Conservationists in favour of bringing the Lynx back draw upon the example of what has taken place in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. In 1995, after an absence of 70 years, wolf was reintroduced with the aim of thinning out the numbers of Elk. The move was deemed necessary to halt the substantial depredation caused in the park through over grazing. The impact of the move went far beyond simply reducing Elk numbers. Plant and insect life flourished and as a result bird numbers multiplied. The whole experiment has proved a resounding success and those who support the reintroduction of Lynx argue that the same can be achieved here. There is however a very important difference. Yellowstone is almost 9000 sq. kilometres – an area sufficient to allow natural controls to reassert themselves. The reappearance of wolf caused the Elk to move on and disperse elsewhere across the park. Deer threatened by the presence of Lynx would do the same in this country, except rather than disperse across an area not far short of the size of Devon and Cornwall combined (as Yellowstone is), they would quickly find themselves in urban surroundings. The Lynx, which would follow, offers no threat to humans, but the same cannot be said for domestic cats and dogs, never mind sheep, and whilst a thinning of the numbers of the former might be welcomed by the some, the reality is that the public would quickly fall out of love with this rather beautiful interloper. Where farming is concerned those supporting the idea have talked breezily about compensating livestock owners, although of course they tend to be a bit vague on the detail, such as who precisely would do the compensating.
The answer to the deer problem is to make it worthwhile to shooters to control their numbers, by placing a bounty on them (the deer that is, not the shooters). There are plenty of precedents for this. Until the early 1950’s a shilling (5p) would be paid to those presenting a dozen rats’ tails at their local police station. A similar scheme operated for the control of grey squirrels, with sixpence (2.5p) for each dead one. Earlier still and perhaps less happily, rewards were offered for sparrow’s eggs. If not a bounty then something more concerted needs to be applied to the deer problem, maybe along the lines of the Coypu eradication scheme, which saw numbers of the pest then estimated at 200,000 reduced to zero over a period of 20 years. There is one area on which all but a few diehard animal rights idiots and people haters agree; that is that the numbers of deer are at crisis level and a failure to act means disaster for much of our woodland as well as the animal and plant life that depends on it.