The surprise appearance and subsequent safe capture this week of a seemingly tame family of Eurasian lynx in the Scottish Highlands, more than a millennium after the species was extirpated from Britain, has been by far the most bizarre British news story of the year so far. For a brief moment, one of Britain’s most iconic extinct species is now dominating the national discourse – which can only be a good thing. The big question arising from this story, though, is not how the unfortunate creatures got there; but why the lynx, a secretive, beautiful British native species, was not officially reintroduced to Britain long ago.
There are no good reasons for not doing so. Britain has some of the remotest, wildest landscapes in Europe: the Cairngorms is Europe’s largest national park, and the Highlands of Scotland are second only to Lapland as Europe’s least densely populated area. Our landscapes are full of lynx’s favourite prey, deer.
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