Tuesday, 14 July 2020

Go East, Young Man


A plan by farmer-led WildEast to re-wild an area of East Anglia currently used for cultivation is interesting (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/farmers-wildeast-hatch-plan-return-area-size-dorset-wild-nature-east-anglia). They propose that they and other people donate 20% of their land to create an area of 2500 km² (estimated to be the size of Dorset) to be the focus of educational opportunities as well as wildlife. They hope to introduce Eurasian lynx, beavers etc into the location. I like the idea (always assuming that we can get our food from other markets) but I don't think you would get many Lynx into an area of that size (even if it is self-contained and not split up into packages). Polish studies on Lynx in a mountain location (and East Anglia is notoriously flat) seem to require home ranges between 150 and 200 km², so there might be room for 5 males and 5 females. After that, there is no room for expansion, so new beasts would have to leave the area (by one means or another).

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