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SCARY OR WHAT? - A workshop on reintroducing key species to Britain
8 September 2006, Abbey Home Farm, Cirencester

NOTES FROM THE MEETING:

Wild animals and birds have an edge over wildflowers and trees in interest and affection in wildland circles. The range of cuddly toy birds and animals on show at the fourth meeting of WN – albeit many of them predators – set the context for what was a gorge on information about reintroductions of our lost furred and feathered friends. We were like corvids feeding on road kill.

Only in the concluding remarks of John Bowers did the 80 or so attendees hear a lament over the lack of attention given during the day to the habitats in which they make their home. But we weren’t there to talk about trees and, as one conscious of the dangers of a narrowed interest, I found much to fascinate me about the interaction between animals and the landscapes around them.

The reaction of a wildlife trust worker, that she could discard her heavy equipment and tools and instead rely on beaver to manage a landscape, seemed to be a common cross-over moment. As Derek Gow explained, the rising waters and sedimentation in silt traps from beaver damming, purifies the water as well as increasing the local holding capacity.

Another cross-over moment was the comment that a BAP was what you put your burger in. Those with the flow saw a rewriting of plans, incorporating the functions of wild animals to achieve the immediate aims – a selling point to the plan-mad conservation system of the moment – but for the longer term, a rational re-integration of all the elements that make up a functional wild land ecology. By all means have herbivores nibbling the (complexly vegetated) landscape says the aptly named David Bullock – but try to use herbivores that are analogues of lost native species (don’t call them conservation tools says Mathew Oates) AND throw in some predators that scare and move the herbivores around so that they concentrate less, and which redistributes their influence. It thus doesn’t all have to be about predation and population numbers since it is unlikely that our apex carnivore of wolf and the omnivorous bear could have taken down an adult auroch, our lost wild cattle that were much bigger than today’s domestic cattle.

Peter Taylor showed us that our wild herbivore guild is much depleted – mountain hare and deer remain. We could bring back wild boar and wild horse and cattle analogues. But what about the mega-herbivores, and how far back in our history of persecution and extirpation should we look? We once had temperate forest rhino and elephant, and moose had their moment. Add them back to the guild, along with wolves and maybe bear to mess them up, and we would have some measure of how this structuring of woodland took place then. But perhaps we should look forward to our future and work with what we’ve got and can realistically get. That adds an unpredictability to the outcome and some degree of risk, a concept embraced by many there - but at least one still wanted to hold to their (birdy) security blanket.

I like it when something makes sense and fits another piece into place. David Hetherington explained that lynx were ambush hunters, not fit for running down deer like wolves are able to do. You must have cover to be able to ambush deer, which would be scrub and woodland. Now that we know from his and other carbon dating studies that lynx survived much later than previously thought before extinction, certainly through our Roman period and maybe into the 7th Century, we can now see that their demise coincided with continued fragmentation and loss of habitat. Hetherington gave a detailed analysis that showed that a return of lynx to the Scottish Highlands would produce a viable population. David Bullock gave us a graphic that showed a simple but convincing model for how woodland clearances were made by deer, their distribution (and thus the extent of their browsing) predicted by the proximity and spatial relationship to wolves dens.

The eternally young Roy Dennis recounted his decades of involvement with big bird reintroductions - the small groups of three and four sea eagles at first that were doomed to failure (too few and in the wrong place), learning the lessons so that next time it was tens of birds introduced in batches over the years and in the right way and the right place. His tour de force presentation explored almost the complete range of likely reintroductions, showing lessons from continental Europe, and concluding that after beaver – the achievement of which like Derek Gow he regards as the measure of whether Britain is serious – it would be the lynx that has the next best chance of a successful reintroduction.

Roy decried the excessive influence of farmers, land-owners, and fishermen opposed to reintroductions when ‘ordinary’ citizens were more likely to be in favour. He despaired that too few people in conservation organisations, especially at the top, hadn’t been out to see animals in the wild. And that these wild animals shouldn’t be seen as rare or special, there should be enough of them that we make them commonplace. His message to us was “You need to get on and do it” and not waste another year that younger people are so careless of.

What Roy and all the other speakers showed was that wild animals must have their place in our landscapes, where we should make room for them and should look to value their function over and above the poor efforts that have characterised our supplanting of them. If only we could have translated all that appreciation and enthusiastic goodwill towards reintroductions into an action plan for the future.

The meeting write-up is now posted on the WN website:

www.wildland-network.org.uk/meetings/reintro_gloucs/wn_reintro_gloucs_reports.htm

Mark Fisher, 24 September 2006

www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk