Let's have a proper debate about restoring our native wildlife

Let's have a proper debate about restoring our native wildlife

Scotland is a big place.   It covers 78,000 square kilometres and much of it is extensive farmland, remote forest or deer grazed mountains and peatlands. It is not wilderness of course – for the hand of man and evidence of his grazing animals can be seen if you look, even in the remotest areas.

People have had a big impact on the Scottish landscape – felling forests, draining wetlands and bogs and burning vegetation to favour domestic animals, or planting large areas with non-native trees that can grow in wet, nutrient-poor soils.

Another thing our forebears were adept at doing was removing animals that threatened them, or their livestock. So, the last brown bears disappeared in or around the 10^th Century, the lynx was quietly done away with by the early Middle Ages, and the wolf followed in 1769.               .

Smaller less ‘fierce’ species also suffered as people protected their chickens or other livestock. Pine martens, which must once have been very widespread, were pushed to the remotest, least populated areas. Otters were destroyed especially along rivers where they could take salmon or other migratory fish. Both are now recovering their range and numbers, which is a welcome thing.

golden eagle by Peter Cairns.

As for birds, we know that golden eagles once occurred all across Scotland and much of England and Wales.   By the 1890s, though, they were confined to the Outer Isles and the distant parts of the Highlands, numbering less than 200 pairs.   Similarly, the hen harrier was reduced to a few pairs on Orkney and the peatlands and moorlands on the Outer Isles – eradicated from the mainland by systematic killing by gamekeepers. Both have now recovered some of their former range and numbers following legal protection and concerted conservation campaigns, but we have a way to go, especially for hen harriers on grouse moors; and the situation for them in England is particularly troubling.

The white-tailed sea eagle was driven to extinction by sheep farmers, sporting interests, and latterly by skin and egg collectors. The last Scottish bird was shot on Shetland in 1918.

The story of bringing them back is a fascinating 35 year struggle, with visionary people determined to make a difference. It was great news that the latest phase of this long running project could recently report the success of the rearing of a fledged chick in Fife.Just as the people of Norway helped Scotland bring back the sea eagle, so Scotland has helped the Irish Republic re-introduce golden eagles. Re-introductions require willing partners (countries) from which to source the animals, as well as the right conditions and a warm welcome for the re-introduction programme to succeed.

The first white-tailed eagle chick to fledge in the east of Scotland for nearly 200 years. Photo by Ian Francis.

More recently our friends in the Scottish Wildlife Trust have trialled the re-introduction of beavers in Argyll, and some landowners have also introduced beavers, albeit ‘under the radar’ and without due process – never the ideal method - in the Tay river system. There is at least one on our Loch of Kinnordy reserve-but I have not seen it. I can’t imagine this re-introduction being reversed, despite its less than ideal basis. So beavers are, one way or another, probably here to stay – I am pleased about that. On the continent beavers are spreading westwards and rural communities as well as people in towns are becoming used to having them around. They can cause problems, sometimes eating their way through maize grown near watercourses –but it can be managed, and lets get that into perspective.

Because we, on the island of Britain, are surrounded by sea, beavers can’t spread back to Scotland – or England, or Wales - without our help. Nor can several other species formerly found in our countryside, like wolves – now regularly seen in parts of France, Germany and even appearing in the Low Countries or the lynx which has successfully been re-introduced to several parts of mainland Europe, and is re-appearing naturally in others. In Fenno-scandia and the Baltic states the Lynx is not uncommon, but is seldom seen.   Italy, a country of 60 million people, has widespread wolves, and a surviving bear population in the Apennine hills and mountains. Some are found less than 75 kilometres from Rome.

Eurasian lynx by Peter Cairns.

You can probably guess where this is heading.   I think we should be bolder in restoring the lost wildlife that should inhabit our country. Obviously we should stop further extinctions, whether that be of the wildcat, capercaillie or red squirrel, or the hundreds of other endangered species we have.

A restored habitat – whether that be a blanket peatland, native pinewood or an ancient atlantic oakwood, is not functionally complete if it does not support the many species that make it special. It is like having banks without money in the vaults.   A woodland to me is not nearly as beautiful without the song of birds or the footprints or scats of the mammals that hide in its depths – or the mosses, lichens and fungi that are there if you know where to look. Studies are beginning to demonstrate that predators can have a much more profound effect on habitats than previously thought, affecting the behaviour of herbivores and thus encouraging the development of woodland ‘patchworks’ that benefit a whole host of biodiversity. In Scandinavia it seems that sea eaqles might have an important role in reducing the impact of invasive American mink, introduced by people.

So we should have a proper debate about species – the wildlife found in our country, or which was once found in our country - and start to restore it. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has some good ground rules to guide decision making– in essence if the reason why an animal became lost has not been identified and addressed, it is not a good idea to proceed. If it will get back of its own accord then let’s encourage that rather than interfere. That may rule out brown bears – but I don’t think it rules out the lynx or, perhaps, one day even the wolf being given serious consideration? Could we live with large predators like this in our countryside again? A system to manage, monitor and compensate for any proven losses of domesticated livestock would need to be in place-as they are in several of our EU partner countries. But Scotland’s burgeoning deer populations suggest there is plenty of suitable wild prey. People in Britain do seem to accept the rather impoversished fauna our forbears have bequeathed to us rather too quickly in my view. I would love to think lynx lurked unseen in the remoter lands of Scotland taking some roe deer now and then, and just occasionally giving a glimpse of itself to a lone walker or wildlife watcher....