What started out as a reported sighting of a pair of Eurasian lynx in the Scottish Highlands has turned out to be an alleged case of “guerrilla rewilding” or, at the very least, illegal release of four individuals of a species long extinct in the area, media reports say.
A pair of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) were first seen in snow-covered Cairngorms National Park on Jan. 8, then caught the next day by staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) along with Scottish police and park rangers.
On Jan. 10, camera traps placed by RZSS spotted another pair of lynx in the park, which were also captured, RZSS said in a statement.
One of the last two individuals caught has died. Laura Moore, RZSS communications manager, told Mongabay by email that they learned about the death of the fourth lynx on Jan. 11. The organization is awaiting results of a postmortem to learn its cause of death, Helen Senn, head of conservation at RZSS, told the BBC.
RZSS said the remaining three lynx have been medically evaluated by veterinarians and moved to a quarantine facility at Edinburgh Zoo for 30 days.
“All three lynx are doing well here [in the care of] expert keepers and vets,” Moore said.
The Eurasian Lynx is a medium-sized wildcat categorized as “least concern” on the IUCN Red List as its population is considered stable in northern Europe and parts of Asia. However, studies suggest that it went extinct in Scotland more than 1,300 years ago due to habitat loss and hunting. Various organizations are considering reintroducing the lynx to Britain, but the proposals have drawn mixed responses.
David Field, RZSS chief executive, told BBC Radio that people who released the lynx might have become impatient and attempted to “bypass all the established international best practice” by illegally releasing the animals. He added it could also be a case of animal abandonment by someone who no longer wanted to care for the wildcats. The captured lynx were reportedly tame and used to humans.
Moore told Mongabay that the lynx release was “a highly irresponsible act” as “it is very unlikely they would have survived in the wild due to a lack of adequate preparation.”
The act is also an offense under local law, punishable by up to five years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both, she said.
Peter Cairns, executive director of rewilding organization SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, said the illegal release was “simply counterproductive.” His organization’s Lynx to Scotland project is already working to properly return the lynx to the Scottish Highlands.
The fate of the three lynx at Edinburgh Zoo remains uncertain. “Long-term, they may return to Highland Wildlife Park, which is near where they were trapped, though it is too early to say for certain,” Moore said.
Banner image of a Eurasian Lynx by Böhringer Friedrich via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5).
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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