| Reintroduction of Wolves - Scottish Highlands | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 24 2013, 05:05 PM (544 Views) | |
| Ranger | Feb 24 2013, 05:05 PM Post #1 |
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The reintroduction of wolves to the highland and forested parts of Scotland would probably aid culling the excessive population of red deer which currently have no natural predators. However we must consider the social impacts of reintroducing wolves. There is a certain amount of fear associated with wolves and this is something which could create a major hurdle in a bid to reintroduce the species. Also, livestock farmers would not be happy with the presence of wolves due to the fact that they may also kill livestock. Feel free to discuss. |
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| Komodo | Feb 24 2013, 09:53 PM Post #2 |
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Its for those reasons that any wolf introductions would have to take place quite a distance from human habitation and villagers took safety precautions. Wolves pose little actual threat to humans, there have been no accounts of healthy, wild wolves killing people, tending to be shy, cautious animals, the only recorded attacks being during severe food shortages or when wolves have become accustomed to people by straying close to towns, which shouldn't be a problem if the wolves are introduced to an area with little human habitation and are learned to stay away from people anyways. The livestock problem can be solved by numerous methods of deterring wolves; Guard dogs, electric fencing, a fladry (a series of red flags which for some reason wolves wont cross), electronic devices to deter wolves and where dead livestock carcasses are injected with a chemical that make wolves vomit when ingested so they learn that livestock isn't good to eat (read more here; Link). Schemes that explain to the farmers and local communities about why these animals are here in the first place could be put into place and the farmers could be reassured that if livestock is somehow still killed they will be compensated. Not to forget how much these small villages will benefit from the tourism these large animals generate! Big money is made from wolf watching these days! Where will these wolves be introduced you may ask? The 'Rewilding Europe' project bases its ideas on the fact that the young of Europe are leaving the countryside for the towns and land is being abandoned, 30 million hecatres is predicted to be abandoned by 2030 and a percentage of this land is in Scotland. This is a snapshot of a map produced by 'Rewilding Europe' showing where this land will be abandoned in dark green allowing opportunities to introduce large predators! Scroll down to page 7 of this brochure for a better look.
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| yosemite101 | Feb 25 2013, 07:26 PM Post #3 |
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I guess so, but alot of farmers in rural areas will not be willing to spend the money on these sorts of defences when they could just not have wolves in the first place. Its just something that the large of majority of livestock farmers probably wont accept. It would be good to see some small packs reintroduced but I don't want the whole of the highlands to be dominated by wolves etc. |
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| Komodo | Feb 25 2013, 07:41 PM Post #4 |
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I'm suggesting that these defences would be paid for by the tourism generated from the wolves (wolf tourism made half a million euros in the La Culebra area in Spain), I understand that electric fences may be hard to pay for, but the fladry is basically a series of red flags. This is of course if all the measures to keep wolves away from towns fail.
I think small packs would be extremely optimistic in itself, I can't imagine a wolf dominated highlands. |
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Where will these wolves be introduced you may ask? The 'Rewilding Europe' project bases its ideas on the fact that the young of Europe are leaving the countryside for the towns and land is being abandoned, 30 million hecatres is predicted to be abandoned by 2030 and a percentage of this land is in Scotland. This is a snapshot of a map produced by 'Rewilding Europe' showing where this land will be abandoned in dark green allowing opportunities to introduce large predators! Scroll down to page 7 of this
8:19 AM Jul 11