Forget about ‘rewilding’: we should be focusing on the species that we do still have

The buzzword of the moment seems to be ‘rewilding’. George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist and environmentalist has a new vision for the countryside, which he wrote about in the magazine two weeks ago. Instead of covering our green and pleasant land with sheep, what we ought to be doing, he argues, is re-introducing all of the species which we humans killed off hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. The process, which he describes as ‘a mass restoration of ecosystems’, would involve repopulating Britain with the elephants, lynx and bison. ‘We live in a shadow land’, he argues in the ‘animated guide’ to rewilding.

But instead of thinking about reintroducing ‘the lost megafauna’ of the UK, shouldn’t we be thinking about the animals which already inhabit our island – and which we’re in grave danger of losing unless we help them out sharpish. Why are we even talking about reintroducing the lynx when our own – and only – wild felid, the Scottish Wildcat, is – according