Letting the cat out of the bag.

As the Lynx Trust UK moves towards making a formal application for a licence to release Eurasian lynx into Britain, we can expect that re-introduction of formerly native species will be the hot-topic in British conservation. It is going to be brought up in the media, in discussions at home and in the pub and in debates at conferences and seminars.

As always in nature conservation, the more heat we have in a discussion, the less light is shed. Already, people are identifying with the battle groups that are forming; so choose your side because if you are not for them, then you must be against them. There is no room for any wavering go-betweens who are likely to get crushed as the battle is joined. The 'pro-wolf' lobby are clustered around their standard bearer George Monbiot. Facing them squarely are the 'anti-predation formation', struggling to come to terms with their new role as 'antis'. Skirmishing on the sidelines are the government agencies, representative organisations and charities that like to shoot both ways.

My concerns over this issue are not to do with Rights and Wrongs, but from our failure to learn a few lessons from the past. The first one is in the title of this piece - once the cat is out of the bag, you will not get it back in. A good example of this is the recent arrival of the beaver in Britain. This species is widespread on the River Tay and is breeding in Devon on the River Otter. Other populations are likely to be blooming as I write, either through natural spread or human intervention. Like it or not the reintroduction has happened and now we have to manage it. The impact of beavers, whether it's welcome or not, is never slight.

Beavers don't fell just small trees. This ash was about 50cm diameter at the base and 25m tall when the beavers chewed it off. (Taken in a wet woodland in a Polish marsh)

We are all going to have to get used to beavers causing change in our rivers and wetlands, but also causing problems and adding both interest and cost.

Beaver impact: this kind of activity will become more common across southern England and Scotland. (Taken beside the River Bug, on the Polish - Byelorussian border)

I am amazed that this lesson has not been learned. There are enough examples in our recent and more distant history. Twenty years ago, I often talked to colleagues and friends about whether wild boar would ever be tolerated in Britain. That is no longer a moot point because as we know, the wild boar is back. Populations in Kent and East Sussex, Dorset and the Forest of Dean have been supplemented by releases of wild boar and domestic crosses throughout Devon and Cornwall, in Dorset and many more sites in Scotland than is officially recognised. Intensive shooting is able to keep a local population under some sort of control, but eventually those populations will break out. How do we know this? Because we have seen it before. The grey squirrel was released in the UK in the late 19th Century. After nearly 140 years, they have not stopped spreading. They are the mammal species with which people are most familiar, they are the wild animal that more people can get close to than any other, they cause huge harm to all our woodlands and deliver a pox virus that kills the indigenous red squirrel. Yet with all that popularity on one hand, and being Enemy Number One on the other, we still can not control their populations or spread. Surely, so much love and hate would inspire us to decisive action? Is this testimony to the squirrel's secret super-power to over-come all opposition, or could it be something to do with us?

Easily introduced: but every attempt to control it's spread and populations have met with failure.

However, if we manage to get over the general confusion that has be-devilled every wildlife release programme and every wildlife control programme in the last few decades, then some of the real issues may become more apparent. On the one hand, we love the released animals (pick a species, any species) and many people wish to see them, know they are 'out there' and are thrilled, inspired and amused by them. On the other hand, we cannot sustain their impact and will not tolerate their presence in certain circumstances such as when our legitimate aspirations are harmed. In the ensuing fire-fight between different types of animal lovers, the animal itself is forgotten and just gets on with the breeding, feeding and wandering about that is no super-power; just it's nature.

A British wild boar. Here to stay.

When the controversy over a release programme dies down, such as in the case of the white-tailed sea eagle, we can start to ask ourselves what we did right and what we could have done better. The reintroduction of the 'flying carpet' to the Hebrides and the Western Highlands has been very successful. Salmon farmers are getting to grips with how to keep it out of their cages, sheep farmers have stopped blaming it for quite so many lamb deaths as they used to and the eagles have done a huge amount for tourism.

What we can see now is that the site for reintroduction (a remote island wildlife reserve in the Inner Hebrides) may not have been the best one. It was decided upon largely as a result of the personalities involved, some historical justification and the fact that it was so remote that it would not have much impact on people. If it was to be done again, I would suggest somewhere other than the Isle of Rum. I would go for the New Forest in Hampshire. Firstly, there's masses of food for eagles: far more than in the Hebrides with lots of coastal birds and fish in shallow waters. The breeding habitat is better too: lots of trees, tall buildings and cliffs nearby for nesting and there would be a great, instant impact on people.

The lesson from the sea eagle reintroduction is that you need to get people seeing, watching, appreciating and getting used to the released animals as fast as possible. The confusion and useless debates will only be dispelled by knowledge and experience. Imagine the sight of those huge birds over the Solent or circling around the Needles. Imagine them sitting on the cranes of Southampton Water or on the mast of a yacht on the Hamble. If we all could see them for what they are, then we would soon get used to them. Personally, I like to think of them in Lymington; catching the seagull that stole my chips last time I was there.

The south of Britain is an incredibly rich habitat, able to support a great amount of wildlife. While the biodiversity it supports has been reduced (fewer species),  the numbers of animals it supports is vast. Native species such as roe deer and badger have never been as numerous as they are today. The sheer productivity of the south lands make them the natural choice for reintroductions of large animals, especially predators such as lynx.

In areas of southern England with good habitat, roe can increase quickly to achieve very high densities. These roe were part of a group of 22 males and females living out on the fields of Wiltshire while other roe deer occupied the surrounding woodlands.

Yet we keep on hearing that Scotland is the place to do it. Never mind the poor thin soils, the short growing season and general paucity of the landscape, Scotland is held up to be THE place to carry out experiments such as introducing wolves, bears and the Poll Tax.

So, back to our bagged cat. There are two proposals for reintroduction that are getting serious consideration: lynx and pine marten.

Pine marten are likely to be with us in the foreseeable future. The reintroduction in Wales is in progress and sites for an English release programme are being looked at. There is a long-term expectation that polecats will remove the problems we have with grey squirrels. Scientists in Ireland have studied the interaction between pine marten and grey squirrel. In short, when pine martens achieve a certain threshold population density, the squirrels give up and go away. The sound of cheering foresters may then scare off the pine martens, but we'll only know about that if it happens. And I do say 'if', because that density threshold is pretty high. Between the arrival of pine martens in an area and the squirrels leaving there will be a number of years. Years in which the pine martens may cause no one any bother at all, but they might also eat some protected species such as dormouse, popular species such as woodpeckers and loved pets such as rabbits, guinea pigs, kittens and poultry. The people who suffer this impact may not necessarily want to see the demise of the grey squirrel, but they may well start to get pretty cheesed off with the pine martens and the people who released them. pine martens will also cause problems for gamekeepers. Pheasants are released into the wild every autumn from pens in the woods. Foxes and badgers can be kept out of the pens by stout wire netting and electric fencing. Not so pine martens, because they climb trees. Gamekeepers will not put up with large-scale losses of expensive pheasants.

Lynx Trust UK have suggested that they are looking at remote areas with low productivity. That is my description, not thiers. I have never understood how the potential lynx habitat is mapped in the UK. Lynx hunt roe deer preferentially. They are almost roe 'specialists' and roe are very keyed into lynx, even when there are no lynx around. Such a close association between predator and prey would lead me to guess that their habitat is the same: wherever you find roe deer then you might find a lynx. One might also expect them to develop a taste for muntjac, which would be no bad thing.

Or would it? Where did you last see a roe deer or a muntjac? I recently saw roe out on the open hill in the Western Highlands of Argyll. I have also seen them living out in the large fields around Salisbury Plain and I have seen them in gardens on the edges of towns and cities. Muntjac get much closer to home. This diminutive deer is very much at home in cities where they can slip between small patches of rich habitat: from allotments, to cemeteries, to gardens, to parks and back again. If the prey are hear on our doorstep, then that makes our doorsteps potential lynx habitat. So you may think that a pine marten eating a little girl's prized guinea pigs is a PR disaster, but wait until a couple of lynx cubs pull a labrador to bits on the back lawn while the family watches in horror and up-loads it to You-Tube.

Lynx do not need a neolithic landscape like the one that previously supported them. They do very well in modern Europe in a wide variety of Twenty-first Century habitats and landscapes. If the lynx release goes ahead then expect it to succeed and to do so very rapidly.

If there is a licence granted for a release, then our further expectations should be:

• Lynx will not solve problems such as the impact we get on forestry crops from deer.
• Lynx will cause additional problems - both expected and unexpected.
• The impact of lynx will be unpredictable and the people who suffer may not be the same people who gain from it. This inequality will be at the root of much of the controversy.
• There will be death and there will be new life; joy and horror; celebration of success and disappointment at the failures. 

It should be an interesting time ...