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The reintroduction of large carnivores in areas from which they were once extirpated has gained ground in several countries globally. India too joined the list two years ago when it brough African Cheetahs to Kuno National Park. In another part of Eurasia though, reintroducing three big predators will be likely be a complex, contested and costly endeavour, according to a new study.
Bringing back lynxes, brown bears and wolves to the islands of Britain and Ireland has been the dream of many conservationists and proponents of rewilding. However, as Jonny Hanson, a Research Fellow in the ARK social policy hub at Queen’s University Belfast found, it is not going to be an easy task.
Hanson spoke to farmers, who would oppose any step to bring back these species, given the harm that could be caused to their livestock, especially sheep. He also interviewed rewilding representatives.
Besides these 10 interviews of farmers and rewilding proponents, Hanson also looked at examples of coexistence in other countries.
“It (the study) also explored examples of coexistence from over 40 interviews in and/or visits to Switzerland, France, Belgium the Netherlands and the USA, which are presented as case studies,” the analysis noted.
Large carnivore reintroductions to Britain and Ireland: farmers’ perspectives and management options noted that management and governance of coexistence with livestock farming, particularly of sheep, was going to be the primary challenge in reintroducing lynxes, wolves and bears to Britain and Ireland.
“The qualitative findings from this report suggest that there is a degree of consensus, among both farming and rewilding representatives alike, about the scope and scale of these challenges, with both groups citing the varied political, economic, social, legal and environmental dimensions,” noted the document.
Hanson noted that “in multiple contexts, a wide variety of tools and methods are utilised to manage this coexistence with large carnivores”.
He grouped them into five main themes: deterrence, finance, force, enterprise and governance.
His interviews showed that farmers were generally skeptical of the first two management tools — deterrence and finance. They cited their varying effectiveness, as well as labour intensity and cost for the former.
All interviewees were in agreement that the use of force would be an essential management tool. But they disagreed over the flexibility of its deployment, especially of lethal control.
Rewilding representatives were likely to emphasise the benefits that reintroduction would bring in the form of tourism. Meanwhile, farmers were concerned about whether the benefits would be allocated to them or not.
Hanson also made a number of recommendations on the issue. For instance, he suggested that “specific conservation translocation guidelines for Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland should be consulted on and developed by the relevant government agency, complementing those already in place for Scotland and England”.
He also suggested that other options to reintroducing large carnivores that would achieve similar environmental outcomes — like the control of deer populations — should be actively considered and explored by all parties.
“More thorough, in-depth and independent cost-benefit analyses, that also consider the costs of training and equipping farmers in deterrence methods, should be commissioned by rewilding, agricultural and other organisations to address this information gap,” said the study.