51–60 of 107 posts
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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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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
Farmers lose small sheep to foxes. Lynx clean an area of foxes and defend bigger territories. Yes a couple of lynx can kill a lamb here and there, but currently they have yet twelve foxes in the same area trying to do the same all the time and living under the farm basement, so... what option looks better for the farmers? My bet would be "much less foxes and a lynx"
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Deer, and rabbits. Lynx are designed to eat rabbits.
Lynx are native to Scotland, I don't believe that rabbits are, they are usually considered to have been introduced by the Normans in the 12th century. According to the wikipedia article the lynx appears to have a pretty varied diet
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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 .
There are alive trees in UK that are more than 500 years old. Think about it.
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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...
Growing up in the midwest, if you didn’t hit a deer with a car yourself, you knew half a dozen people who did.
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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 mean if nothing else there’s value there in animal feed
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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 don't mean to be impolite or judgmental, but I'm wondering if can you share a bit more about how you're able to justify it when someone else is doing the dirty work? I too eat meat, and part of my desire to learn to hunt is to experience the full effect of it, from stalk, to kill, to cleaning, to plate. I've never cleaned anything larger than a redfish, but it's something I'm intensely curious about.
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'…
> They're not endangered, they are aggressive predators, and Scotland's ecology isn't obviously in need of them 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 cou…
> Eurasian Lynx is so endangered in UK that is in fact locally extinct. You can't be more endangered than that.
Eurasian Lynx is listed as “Least Concern”. That there aren’t any in Scotland has no bearing on this. This is a bewildering comment.
> Aggressive is relative ... some crap about zebras
It will be _the_ apex predator in the UK. It can bring down a deer. Wild comparisons to Africa and pack animals are bizarre when taking about introducing a new apex predator to a country that hasn’t had a predator of its size or power in centuries.
> some shit about deer
If deer are truly a problem, it turns out they’re pretty easy to shoot, some people enjoy it, and there’s money to be made from dead deer. You could introduce a new disruptive predator, sure. You could also poison the water source, but it’s also a freakin’ terrible solution to a problem with a much simpler solution.
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'…
> 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,…
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Maybe it's a vital step to restoring the ecosystem back to closer to what it was half a millennium ago?
But what is the value in restoring that ecosystem? I am not saying that is a bad thing (it is probably a good thing), I am just curious what the argument for restoration is here.