A Few bits on Scottish Environmental Conservation

[Alan H]

First start....maybe read this wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Forest

and a scan of this one, as this organization is dear to my heart!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_S...ction_of_Birds

and a quick look-over of this one:

http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/tfl.contents2.html

and then a review of this text from the first wikipedia article:

"In recent years, there has been a growing interest to reintroduce lost animals back into Caledonian pine forests, and to this end corporations have been set up to persuade the government to let them be re-introduced. The long-running campaign to reintroduce European beavers to Knapdale in Argyll appears to have been successful[3] and there is growing support for the reintroduction of the Grey Wolf[4] and Eurasian Lynx.

Recently, there has also been interest over Scottish landowners who are planning to build large game reserves on their land and release the species that are, at present, extinct. Paul Lister plans to release Eurasian Lynx, Brown Bear, Grey Wolf, Elk, Wild Boar and species already present in Scotland into a huge 200 square kilometre enclosure at his estate, Alladale, due for completion in 2009. A trial enclosure (5.5 km²) will be built this year and Elk, Wild Boar, Red Deer and Roe Deer will be released into it this year and next."

I'm curious what people think about this, particularly Scots and people living in Scotland. Of course, I'm hoping Jock Scot will write voluminously here, on his thoughts and insights.

[Bugbear]

Post deleted.

[ThistleDown]

Perhaps I can begin since Jock is fast asleep and I am still wide awake.

In doing so I will make a couple of basic clarifications and declarations so everyone knows in advance. I live roughly half my year in the Highlands -- in the Scottish countryside, in other words and not in an urban animal-less environment; the part I'm in, Strathdearn, was long ago denuded of the old Caledonian Forest but I have numerous friends who live within its remnants in Rothiemurchus, about half-way between Jock Scot and ThistleDown.

I hunt and I fresh-water fish and I husband domesticated animals for their product and their flesh.

A far-distant relative is reputed to have done away with the last wolf in Scotland (that would make the poor, lonely tyke the last the the UK, I imagine). Let's see now, that would be approaching 450 years ago.

I think we did in the beaver even before that. And the bear before that, I think, but I am happy to be corrected.

For a fairly long time now we have been carefully husbanding cattle and sheep and pigs and poultry not native to this land but having long lived here (with our care). We have looked to some of the wild life and cared for it as well (always to our benefit, of course): the red deer, the roe, the caparcailzie, the pheasant, grouse, dove, duck and on and on and on.

In more recent years we have watched the diminishment of the badger, the wild cat and some birds of prey with concern. They contribute to the balance that is the 21C Highlands and we are seeking ways for us to live with them.

But all must be in balance. The way of the wolf is to seek the least able prey -- probably the lamb or the calf or the fawn or the pregnant ewe -- for its dinner. The beaver will seek deciduous forests and the creation of vast ponds for its vegetarian life-style, so far removed from the acidic Caledonian forests of a millenium ago.

Just my beginning.

Rex

[Alan H]

Rex, I am blown away that there is a native Scottish wildcat. I had NO idea. Badgers, sure. Beavers? Well, I'm surprised, but OK. But a wildcat?

http://www.toothandclaw.org.uk/species.asp?profile=16

OMG, what a gorgeous, *gorgeous* animal. ......"touch not the cat 'bot a glove"...... yeah, I think so. I bet that little motto wasn't referring to the household tabby! Flippin KEVLAR gloves!

http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/

[ThistleDown]

Rex, I am blown away that there is a native Scottish wildcat. I had NO idea. Badgers, sure. Beavers? Well, I'm surprised, but OK. But a wildcat?

http://www.toothandclaw.org.uk/species.asp?profile=16

OMG, what a gorgeous, *gorgeous* animal. ......"touch not the cat 'bot a glove"...... yeah, I think so. I bet that little motto wasn't referring to the household tabby! Flippin KEVLAR gloves!

http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/

Wonderful, aren't they? You know, in my entire life I have only seen two in the wild? I've seen feral cats and interbreeds, but only two I knew -- for sure -- were "felis grampia". One was just above me near Dalarossie in Strathdearn and the other was in the Corrieyaraick. It is thought that there may be as many as (as few as?) 400 left in the Highlands.

"Touch not the cat." The Clan Chattan is named for Saint Katan and he, perhaps, for the little, wild, ferocious, native cats of the Central Highlands. The old tribe of folk who gathered around him in Lochaber and Badenoch took as their symbol a little carnivore not to be played with -- "touch not the cat if it is not gloved". That is, if its claws are not sheathed (and it is friendly).

Today those people are known as the Cattanachs, Davidsons, Macphersons, Macphails, Macgillivrays, Macqueens, Shaws, Farquharsons, Macthomases, Macritchies and their leading family, the Mackintoshes. It could be that the clan of the cats earlier included the Macmillans, the Macgillonies, the Macsorlies, the Macmartins and the Camerons, but who knows today, a thousand years down the line?

And for me and mine, we are trying to protect this native today. You might want to drop in on http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/support/adoption/

Rex

[Alan H]

I know there are puma (California mountain lion) in the hills that I hike in, but I have never seen one. I have seen scat, I have seen the remains of kills, I have even see tracks, which is a pretty big thrill, but the cat remains invisible.

Only twice in my life have I ever seen our native bobcat, once in Yosemite Valley of all the unlikely places, and once on a remote trail, across a low field near Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco. Seeing those cats remain a thrill that I remember, years, even decades later.

Here's our native bobcat.



I think your Scottish wildcat is absolutely magnificent, and I hope, oh I hope that there is serious willpower in Scotland to save the animal and the territory it needs to survive....and keep feral domestic cats OUT of the area. Not so easy.

[ThistleDown]

I'll have one more say tonight and then I must be away to my bed.

"Recently, there has also been interest over Scottish landowners who are planning to build large game reserves on their land and release the species that are, at present, extinct. Paul Lister plans to release Eurasian Lynx, Brown Bear, Grey Wolf, Elk, Wild Boar and species already present in Scotland into a huge 200 square kilometre enclosure at his estate, Alladale, due for completion in 2009. A trial enclosure (5.5 km²) will be built this year and Elk, Wild Boar, Red Deer and Roe Deer will be released into it this year and next."

I'll not argue here with any landlowner trying to make his way in these difficult times, but I do want to point out to the urban-dwellers among you that a return to the land of yesteryear is nigh on impossible.

It is certainly an accomplishable goal if you accept that your wee cats and lap dogs are acceptable prey for wolves and lynx and that you, yourself, will have a much, much, much smaller terraine for roaming when bears and wolves again roam the hills of home.

Rex

[ThistleDown]

I know there are puma (California mountain lion) in the hills that I hike in, but I have never seen one. I have seen scat, I have seen the remains of kills, I have even see tracks, which is a pretty big thrill, but the cat remains invisible.

Only twice in my life have I ever seen our native bobcat, once in Yosemite Valley of all the unlikely places, and once on a remote trail, across a low field near Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco. Seeing those cats remain a thrill that I remember, years, even decades later.

Here's our native bobcat.



I think your Scottish wildcat is absolutely magnificent, and I hope, oh I hope that there is serious willpower in Scotland to save the animal and the territory it needs to survive....and keep feral domestic cats OUT of the area. Not so easy.

"Out" is wishful thinking, I am thinking, Alan. Not even thinkable. We can only look at other means and those belong to the world. Up to us.

Rex

[Alan H]

I regularly backpack in country where there are brown bears. In thirty years of backpacking I have seen bears a total of three times...not counting the cub that was so acclimated to the free-handouts at a certain Sierra Nevada campground that he practically roamed free on the grounds....there's a disaster in the making. I could rant, but won't. It's utterly stupid.

Once the Luminous Joan and I were coming down a washed-out road which served as a trail. We were talking, it was only half a mile to the trailhead, and a wash-up. We came around a corner, and there was a mother bear with a cub, not fifty feet from us. We backed right back up that trail a good hundred yards, mighty quick, and gave her fifteen minutes to clear out. She eyed us right good, but nothing happened, and I wasn't about to put up a fuss about who owned the trail with mama....ten times over not with her cub right there. That's it,..seriously in thirty summers of backpacking in bear country in the Sierra Nevada, ONE encounter. The other one, I saw a bear about 200 yards up the trail ahead of us. He saw us, and took off.

Wild brown bears aren't a problem, they stay away from people. It's when the bear learns that there's food in your backpack, or food in that bag hanging near your tent that there's a problem. Seriously....thirty years of backpacking in bear country and I have not once had a dangerous or even scary close encounter with a bear. Every single close encounter that I know of, and I have a lot of friends who backpack and camp, has been over improperly stored food, or in places where the bears have so much human contact that they don't care what the people do. They don't want to EAT people. They want to eat PEOPLE FOOD. Any raving idiot that tries to take a food sack away from a bear once he's got it deserves the clawing he's going to get. I mean...how bloody stupid can you get?

Now Grizzly bears, like in Alaska or Yellowstone Park. That's a WHOLE different question!!!! I would think VERY hard about going for an overnight backpacking trip in grizzly country, but I personally know people who do it. One of them says he likes the feeling of knowing that it's REAL Wilderness, where he is NOT at the top of the food chain. It intensifies the experience. **ahem** Yeah, well. Fine.

Wolves... There are probably next to no wolves left in California, although there are a gazillion coyote, everywhere. I saw one three weeks ago on Stanford Biological Preserve at Jasper Ridge. I can't count the nights I've gone to sleep under the stars listening to coyote barking and howling. It's wonderful.

But there are absolutely wolves on Isle Royale in Michigan.

http://www.isle.royale.national-park.com/

As you can see, there is hiking and backpacking information on that website. People hike and camp in wolf country. Boy Scout troops go backpacking and camping on Isle Royale. One of my college roommates was in a Boy Scout Troop that did a ten day trip onIsle Royale and they saw wolves. No problem. I would not think twice about it, myself, though maybe I would think twice about it in the winter when food is really, really scarce. Honestly, I'd be more concerned about the mosquito's than the wolves.

Now, if the are bears and wolves around, then tabby cats DO disappear now and then. It happens. But even raccoons will kill a cat and eat it, if they can, and raccoons are all over the place. Sheesh, we have them in my back yard.

I would not worry about human safety if European brown bears and wolves were reintroduced to Scotland, honestly.

[Alan H]

Yes, keeping the feral cats out of the wildcat gene pool is probably fantasy. It's already happened, honestly. There are more hybrids than wild cats, now.