Two billionaire Scandinavians who own vast tracts of land in remote parts of Scotland hope to reintroduce wild lynxes to their land.
Anders Holch Povlsen, 48, a $ 6 billion Danish billionaire who is considered the UK’s largest land owner, with an empire of approximately 220,000 acres, and Lisbet Rausing, an heiress to Tetra Pak, who owns an additional 80,000 acres of the Scottish Highlands, research funding has focused on the reintroduction of the predator, British newspaper The times reports.
The lynx was wiped out in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom about 500 years ago through hunting and habitat loss; populations, however, survive in Central and Northern Europe.
Eurasian lynxes can stand up to 27 inches high at the shoulder and weigh about 60 pounds, making them significantly larger than the Canadian lynxes and bobcats seen in some North American regions.
They eat about five pounds of meat a day. Due to their purely carnivorous diet, many sheep farmers, a powerful lobby in the region, are strongly opposed to reintroduction. The National Farmers Union Scotland strongly opposed an earlier proposal to reintroduce lynxes to a forest near Loch Lomond, The times reports.
However, evidence of public support for the reintroduction of lynx could prompt the regulatory agency NatureScot to issue a license that would allow for the dramatic replanting plan. A new one-year study costing $ 65,000 is funded by Povlsen and Rausing.
Proponents argue that farmers will receive compensation for any livestock killed by lynxes, as is often the case with other officially managed reintroductions of locally extinct species. They also say that lynxes would help regenerate forests by preying on roe deer that nibble on young trees and stunt their growth. A charity that supports proposals to reintroduce lynxes said they believed there was enough habitat and prey in Scotland to support about 500 lynxes.
Peter Cairns, executive director of Scotland: The Big Picture, said the aim of the investigation was to “bypass the tribal leaders” of agencies such as NFU Scotland and speak with individual farmers.
He said that lynxes reintroduced to the Highlands would spread and eventually cross over to Northern England.