41–50 of 107 posts
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Deer seem to be a problem everywhere. In the US midwest they're all over the place.
At least in the US midwest there's lots of space for them. Several times in London UK I've been in a car that nearly hit one. See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/20/stags-in...
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Lynx are native to Scotland. They're simply being reintroduced.
Were native. About 500 years ago. Ecosystems change. Bears and wolves were also native to Scotland once but we'd think twice about reintroducing them .
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Crossbows are easy to use and don't alarm neighbors. Venison is delicious and nutritious. Butchering a deer is a fun and educational project for the whole family, and requires very little equipment: knives and a big table, plus a tree limb and some rope for the initial skinning. This is yet another problem that people could solve for themselves, if enough of them cared to do so.
> Butchering a deer is a fun and educational project for the whole family I would find it gross and traumatic to the point where I might lose my lunch. I eat meat, but if I had to butcher my own meat I'd go vegetarian. I like your solution though, I'm surprised that the market doesn't just solve the problem to the point where we're worried about there being too few deer - is hunting limited or is there not enough dem…
It's one thing to do these things once a month on a hunting trip for leisure versus doing it nearly every week in order to maintain your property or community. It's like the difference between gardening as a hobby versus farming as a lifestyle.
The amount of hunting needed to control the deer population and the population of able bodied and sufficiently interested hunters simply doesn't scale properly in most communities.
Predators who hunt as their main purpose and niche in life seems like a more viable solution if we determine how to keep the livestock predation to an acceptable level.
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Crossbows are easy to use and don't alarm neighbors. Venison is delicious and nutritious. Butchering a deer is a fun and educational project for the whole family, and requires very little equipment: knives and a big table, plus a tree limb and some rope for the initial skinning. This is yet another problem that people could solve for themselves, if enough of them cared to do so.
> Butchering a deer is a fun and educational project for the whole family I would find it gross and traumatic to the point where I might lose my lunch. I eat meat, but if I had to butcher my own meat I'd go vegetarian. I like your solution though, I'm surprised that the market doesn't just solve the problem to the point where we're worried about there being too few deer - is hunting limited or is there not enough dem…
I'm a city boy, but I was sent to the countryside every once in a while to learn how to kill and butcher animals so I could respect what nature has given us.
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Scotland has had 'freedom to roam' laws for something like 15 years. Aside from a few "common sense" exclusions like quarries and airfields, the only real restriction is that roamers act responsibly. Any other exclusions would need to be passed into law, which is highly unlikely to ever happen. In practice these rights work well for everyone.
In the debate about reintroducing wolves to Scotland the landowner wanted to fence the land and add it to one of the few "common sense" exclusions. https://www.nathab.com/blog/bringing-wolves-back-to-scotland...
Lynx are extremely photogenic, but I can't help wondering - why? They're not endangered, they are aggressive predators, and Scotland's ecology isn't obviously in need of them. The fact that they were common half a millennium ago when the ecosystem was very different doesn't seem particularly relevant. So if this is just for tourism and/or as a vanity project and there are no solid ecological or scientific reasons, I'…
Three falses in a row. First, Eurasian Lynx is so endangered in UK that is in fact locally extinct. You can't be more endangered than that. Moreover, Spanish lynx is still one of the most critically endangered mammals in the planet
Aggressive is relative. IMHO, a pack of wild dogs pursuing a zebra for a couple of miles (before to eat it in chunks while alive) is aggressive. Lynx are ambush predators that avoid humans.
UK ecology has several problems. One of this is the fever of introducing exotic game species and specially deer. Apart of roe and red are: fallow deer, chinese water deer, asian muntjac and japanese deer. All introduced by hunters. Their populations are increasing and trying to pack as many plant eaters as possible in absence of predators is a very bad idea. To add pressure to the unfortunate trees of Scotland there are also rabbits and zillions of cattle. This is blocking the regeneration of forests, keeping many areas deforested and eroded and severely reducing the populations of many bird species.
Must be also noted that deer can be also dangerous for humans and can (and will) stab dogs but, for some reason, pet safety was not seen as a problem in that case.
> This is just for tourism
Great then, a powerful reason to do it and a win-win for the local people.
If hunters were allowed for decades the right to release as many alien species that they liked, it seems a little hypocritical to criticize hotel owners or wildlife photographers for wanting to release native animals that they like also. Either everybody can do it or nobody should do it. All citizens having the same rights and duties is in the basis of a modern society
Diversification of economy is always the safest and smartest move. Not everybody must be a farmer.
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Sheep farming is pretty uneconomic in the UK, and sheep are destructive beasts so lynx reducing their numbers might be a good thing
> Sheep farming is pretty uneconomic in the UK So it makes sense the farmers would be opposed to anything that may eat their tiny profit margins
Not a very romantic view I agree, if you're staring at a field of dead lambs and mothers, but farmers need to be philosophical these days. A lot of Australian farmers leave the land shortly after having to shoot stock in drought. Is this really worse?
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In the debate about reintroducing wolves to Scotland the landowner wanted to fence the land and add it to one of the few "common sense" exclusions. https://www.nathab.com/blog/bringing-wolves-back-to-scotland...
Thanks for that link - relatively short read, hinting at the multifaceted nature of doing something like this — and it’s not totally obvious what’s selfish and what’s altruistic.
With predators, I am unsure what the (quasi?)economic argument would be. I think the environment is healthier with a population of top predators. its possible it would stop rampant deer problems, they eat the living bejesus out of young trees. But the young trees in question are mostly monoculture, cropped trees. We're not talking native forest here mostly, the caledonian forest is a tiny percentage of the plantation state of most of scotlands forestry. (or was, I left in the 80s. I am probably out of date here)
A lot of 'beautiful' landscape is totally manufactured, including grouse moors. The de-forestation of britain across the industrial revolution, and then the highland clearances to replace upland small tenant farming with sheep, was about replacing the landscape with .. other landscape. Forestry Commission plantations are a bit soulless, but Edinburgh Universty has been running forestry management degrees since around 1917, and the need for timber in WWI. A lot of "restore nature" is really "put it back the way my grandfather had it" not "put it back to the doggerland days"
I like wolves and lynx and beavers and storks. Lots of tourists like them. I don't know (absent CAP market support to farmers) which is more net beneficial longterm, the destructive farming patterns, or the tourism. Both have up and downsides.
Non-british resident. I could get "what do you know" answers back. They'd be fair.
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> and Scotland's ecology isn't obviously in need of them. If you've visited Scotland's countryside, you might have noticed the sweeping vistas of grassy green fields, yellow bushy marshes, and purple heather -- and a conspicuous absence of any trees. It's a very unnatural landscape, historically speaking. Scotland (along with the rest of the UK) cut down most of their old growth forests in the industrial revolution,…
Deer, and rabbits. Lynx are designed to eat rabbits.