Rewilding Britain: A focus on the reintroduction of mammals

imagine a Briton beaming with wildlife large carnivores roaming the lands woodlands covering the hillsides a truly wild britain this existed not so long ago and there is now a call for this landscape to be returned this movement has been coined rewilding britain the idea is to restore the wild ecosystems of britain both terrestrial and marine to a state that existed before human activity manipulated the land for agriculture and population expansion at its peak 5,000 years ago woodland covered much of Britain but what we see today barely resembles that picture of our recent past so what happened the Neolithic farmers arrived there was an increase in human settlement an introduction of livestock and domesticated animals and the mass clearing and burning of woodland for agriculture 50% of the original woodland was lost by 500 AD along with a number of fauna species rewilding is a controversial subject it appears that many support the basic fundamentals of increasing ecotourism educating and engaging the public of nature and increasing the longevity and sustainability of our ecosystems any of these can be achieved by many routes such as the RSP B's campaign to give nature home the Marine Conservation Society's great british beach cleanup and protecting vulnerable species and the habitats this is not enough for some Britain used to have more species rare miss land and there is a call for them to be returned however the species and questions are causing quite a debate we'll be focusing on three species that are currently of particular prevalence these are the beaver wolf and Lynx the IUCN defines a reintroduction as the intentional movement and release of an organism inside its indigenous range from which it has disappeared for a reintroduction to be considered there must be suitable habitat where there is a gap in the native range of a species natural recolonization must be unlikely the species must have become locally extinct from anthropogenic factors rather than natural the issues that cause the extinction must no longer be a threat and the individuals being reintroduced must come from stable populations the first mammal to be reintroduced to Britain was the European beaver hunted to extinction in the sixteenth century for health meat and glandular secretions the beaver is now back amongst the British fauna over the years beavers have escaped from private land in Devon and in Tayside but in 2009 the Scottish beaver trial commenced in the GNAT Dale forest for families from Scandinavia were released on the Argyle River and their activities and impacts have been recorded since but why is their reintroduction been perceived to be so important beavers are considered to be keystone species beaver dams can slow water flow Jones floods the sustained flow during dry about they improve water quality and absorb agricultural runoff reducing pollution by creating fresh water habitat their presence can benefit populations of otters water sure multiples birds dragon flies and other insects and breeding fish overall there was a positive effect on fish but there were some cases where the beavers had a negative impact on migrating salmon in these cases salmon bots have the power to remove or manage the interfering beaver dams in the Napa trial area over thirteen square kilometers of freshwater habitats been created this is a major benefit for a lot of species but it can have an impact on local communities it has believed that through the celebrities of water through the dams flooding in the lowlands can be reduced but this could also cause a problem for farmers there are some so liable to flooding and so heavily drained that the presence of a beaver there are ways around this aside from removing dams and potentially relocating troublesome animals a method being pushed to manage problem dances by the use of the beaver deceiver this flow device enables beavers to behave naturally in the belief that their dam is watertight whilst actually enabling water to throw at a relatively normal rate electric fencing in wire mesh can also be used to protect desired trees compensation in the NAT Dale trial area has also been rewarded to farmers and landowners negatively impacted by the Beavers fortunately this is a relatively small sum in the Tayside area in Scotland where beavers escaped from private land the Tayside be the study group has been offering advice to landowners on how to cope with beetles in the area Andrew Bower with the NF u Scotland points out that the reintroduction of beavers in our town should be treated much differently to the escaped individuals in the Tayside area this area is located on a low-lying stretch of land very susceptible to flooding farmers employ various techniques to move the water from their land as quickly as possible anything that may compromise the stability and efficiency of the drainage ditches is bad news unfortunately these matters may be difficult to resolve some argue that it is the constant trampling of the soil by lifestyle contractors that caused the Frog bats to burst whereas others argue that it is the presence of beavers that caused the damage as a legal and responsible of reintroduction it appears that most have supported the Scottish beaver trial however it must be noted that releases and escapees will cause conflict when their effects are unknown and the correct management and manpower are not in place to control them the Scottish government will decide in 2016 whether or not the trial was a success potentially allowing the beavers to stay in Britain also considered a keystone species is the wall their reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park in the US has been testament to this brought back in 1995 scientists had noticed their effect on the ecosystem right down to the spawning fish in the rivers it would first appear that the two groups of species are not interlinked or have a negative correlation as wolves have been found to predate on salmon migrations but something has happened in Yellowstone National Park that has shown the truly great effect of trophic cascades a chain reaction of events causing changes in population sizes right down to the primary producers wolf present started its effect by altering the grazing patterns of Red Deer the Red Deer now face serious risk of predation so avoided areas they would be easily caught in those areas cottonwood Aspen and Willow all regenerated in their absence more trees and shrubs provided more habitats of birds and more berries for bears the aspirin provided word for beavers that are themselves ecosystem engineers improving fish spawning sites and then you could go full circle and say that the Wolves benefit once again when they feed on these fish these examples mainly brush the surface of changes and improvements to the complex food web that exists an increase in the number of trees not only improves the beaver populations they also stabilize riverbanks and reduce the amount of meandering reshaping the landscape Yellowstone National Park is once again a fully functioning self-sustaining ecosystem all thanks to the reintroduction of wolves but is this all transferable to Britain as many of the key species in Yellowstone or their equivalents occur in Britain there is the potential for the Wolves to have a very similar effect wolves were hunted to by the 15th century in the hands of humans they were perceived to be pests as a result deer in Britain currently have no natural predators so a wolf president could alter their behavior and feeding habits relieving pressure on the regenerating forests furthermore wolves could naturally help reach the deer commission for Scotland's target deer densities the Forestry Commission Scotland spends over nine million pounds a year on deer management imagine the savings that could be made on top of boosting ecotourism but with the reintroduction of wolves comes a real threat of livestock predation it has been reported that in some areas of Europe after 200 sheep have been killed by one pack in one night and although regionally livestock deaths occur at very low percentages local impacts could be devastating for individual farmers several ideas have been posed to manage human wolf conflicts / species like the cumin and the Jaguar and what they've done is they've given the farmers camera traps on their hat and they've asked the farmers to go and collect the schools of the little bit on their individual for their computer it's even godly photographs but if the father gets a photograph of a cougar with Dracula very scarce and nothing they said to the check the other thing we saw in America was the assuming of God dog so we seen it in France and Romania as well and the shepherds you know just have these dogs that are trained to the province to chase around premises but Andrew power with the nfu Scotland reiterates that unless they are willing private funders the UK's economy enrolling in a national minimum wage system is too advanced to support the underpaid job of the Shepherd and its guard dog the final stigma around wolves is the risk of human attacks years of fairy tales and folklore have branded the big bad wolf a monster in books and films today they are still being given a ruthless reputation although it exists wolves actually pays very little threat to humans normally in the world if wolf see people they run in the other direction they can smell you from two miles away so you won't even notice they've seen you before they run away there's only two people have really been killed by wolves and doesn't mean it's never happened in the past but we create situations where it can be a possibility with all this in mind many experts have ruled out the possibility of a reintroduction of wolves for one crucial reason there are simply not enough available habitat to support the iconic species if you look at wolves and how they survive our country isn't big enough it's too heavily populated they're dead killed by roads if he did put them up into Scotland you'd have to tell us and Cornwall that they're on their way so it's personal way down so it's not as simple as this one study has suggested that 10,000 square kilometers of habitat is required to sustain genetically viable populations of wolf the Scottish Highlands is less than half this size and while some believe the walls could survive there they would naturally disperse beyond the invisible boundaries of the National Park into more densely populated more intensively farm surrounding lowlands whilst the reintroduction of the wolf currently looks unlikely through continued debate and education and increasing efforts to rewilding other routes in 30 years time the story might be different also hotly contending the list of possible reintroductions is the Lynx the shy species has been an underdog in the story of Rewald in Britain they are an ambush predator found in woodlands like the wolf the main benefit of the Lynx is to reduce deer numbers not only will the Lynx predate on roe deer but they would also hunt the invasive non-native Sika deer presence of Lynx could therefore help the regenerating forest and preserve his own habitat there is also a small chance that the Lynx could reduce Fox numbers if this happened this produced a meso predator release effect that currently exists in Britain the mezzo predator release results when an apex predator is removed from the food chain boosting the populations of their prey and thus adding pressure on the lower levels of the food chain adding the Lynx as an apex predator could restrict the foxes damage on poultry and game birds as well as small mammals the main driver of the Lynx extinction in Britain was as a result of human driven habitat they're also persecuted as it was thought there are a culprit of livestock depredation and this is a main concern to their reintroduction throughout the rest of Europe Lynx predation on livestock is minimal it is highest in Sweden but sheep graze in the woodland prime lives habitat agriculture in Britain does not currently operate in the same manner as Sweden so many disregard this as an issue but comparing British agriculture with Europe should not be taken so literally Andrew Bauer of the N F us want Scotland is expanding its forests and trying to push for a practice of agroforestry this aims to integrate grazing livestock and growing trees to increase efficiency of woodland ecosystems whilst maintaining livestock so although links would currently have minimal effect on livestock as seen in Eastern and Central Europe that currently operate similar farming techniques to Britain and moved to a system more similar to that seen in Sweden would dramatically changed the outcome as your available habitat Scotland may have plenty an individual Lynx has a home range of about 120 kilometers squared so for a viable population to exist there must be plenty of interconnected woodland David Hetherington assess the available space in a research paper published in 2008 he found a potentially 15,000 kilometer squared a suitable habitat in the Scottish Highlands and 5,000 kilometers squared in the southern uplands with a further 800 kilometers squared of potential habitat in the northeast of England since 2008 woodlands have grown and between 2012 and 2022 the Forestry Commission hope to plant 100,000 hectares or 1,000 square kilometers of trees in Scotland strengthening the viability of suitable habitat for Lynx there are currently no concrete plans for trial reintroduction but both the Lynx trust UK and a new charity rewilding Britain are working to make it a possible in the near future there are many advantages and drawbacks to reintroducing species back into an ecosystem what must occur in order for rewilding to be successful is public interaction in discussion it is vital that those whom will be most affected have a voice educating the country about the importance of biodiversity and changing preconceived perceptions about wildlife may prove to be vital in future years but is there still a place in our ecosystems for these large mammals to once again roam to the advantages outweigh the disadvantages can we in Britain live alongside large carnivores in today's society the choice is ours

Channel: Sian Douglass

Views: 45,690

Keywords: rewilding, rewilding britain, nature, newcastle university, documentary, wolf, lynx, beaver, red deer, animals, biodiversity, ecosystems

Id: WeaVNMxR2WY

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 08 2016