Came across this link

Just wondered what peoples' views were.  Personally I think it could lead to a whole heap of trouble!

Debs

I really think its a good idea. We could take the criminals we can't fit in the jails, paint them with gravy and set them free to fend for themselves in the same area :)

thats a great idea lol

I'm not sure how they'd explain to the wolves they have to hunt deer and not just nip into the nearest field to get themselves some lamb chops for tea :rolleyes:

I think you may be right about the lamb chops.  I would love to see them running wild again and we now know that they would be shy and elusive where humans are concerned but not with tasty little treats cornered in a field .  I don't think they would be as brave as foxes though and creep into hen houses.

Why can't we have large fenced reserves instead like Longleat or bigger (cost I guess).

Edited to say:- but we could off set the cost with the money saved by putting the gravy flavoured crooks in with them.

>Why can't we have large fenced reserves instead like Longleat or bigger

I think they have got that at the Highland Wildlife Park :D but it rather defeats the object of using them to control the overpopulation of deer.
I don't know how I feel about it really.  I remember starving deer coming down into the town at night, desperate for food in the winter, when I lived in the North of Scotland but I am not sure what use it is to add another rung to the food chain who will themselves starve when food is reduced and their numbers are not checked.  I would like to know they had really done their research into the likelyhood of them being too much of a nuisance to farmers also.

Isabel:

>I remember starving deer coming down into the town at night, desperate for food in the winter, when I lived in the North of Scotland<

Quote from link:

>Wolves, which were hunted to extinction in Scotland in the late 1700s, .......<

Just how old are you????

sorry, couldn't resist :D

Pretty old :D but deer are not extinct and that's what I saw with my appropriate glasses on, I missed the wolves by a year or two :) 

LOL maybe I need to wear mine a bit more often too :P :P

>I remember starving deer coming down into the town at night, desperate for food in the winter, when I lived in the North of Scotland

We regularly see deer on our street and in the park nearby but then we border open countryside.   However more recently I was returning from the vets (about a mile or so away) on a busy A road and two red deer were running along the pavement and then went onto dodge the traffic :( :( :(  Eventually one disappeared into a small estate of luxury flats with little by way of gardens / cover and the younger one continued down the main road until all traffic stopped and it leapt a wall into the grounds of a large nursing home which has large leafy gardens.  The nearest moors and woodlands to there is about a further mile away so goodness knows how they made it so far into a built up area.

I can only guess that the deer population here, NW Glasgow, has grown to dangerous proportions.  A wolf or two might not be a bad idea - after all it would give the Belgians a work-out for their natural instincts and I'm all for Carla's gravy saturated thugs providing calories :D  

I saw 3 deer running up my street last year and we are no-where near the countryside but they live in the small woods at the golf course about a mile away.  No idea what brought them up into the housing scheme but what a sight!

I wonder where the wolves would come from?  Ontario wolves were trapped and shipped to the U.S. some years ago to be re-established in Yellowstone Nat. park.  And turkeys from two states in the U.S. were re-established here.  Both programs have been a success.

I am so against this............... I didn't read the whole link so perhaps my worries were answered.

But, this country at present is pretty safe for us all, we don't go into the woods or on country walks with any worry of being attacked, we don't go on picnics and with our toddlers or babies and think I need to look out for a wolf perhaps who could snatch my child....... remember dingo's!!!!

Although they may be introduced in Scotland and perhaps even behind secure acres,  I don't have faith that one or two may eventually find a way out of those boundaries, that they would breed that wolves would pop up all over the country over decades.

Our country as in all countries go through climate cycles, as already mentioned with the deer there were years when they were starving and forced to come into our urban lives, we already have red and grey foxes raiding our rubbish bins why would anyone think that wolves wouldn't.

The grey squirrel has all but wiped out the red, the wolf could wipe out many other mammals and stand as the head of our countries food chain.

I think it is asking for trouble, weather and climate especially at present is too unpredictable causing possible problems to the food chain, as lovely as it would be to see a wolf standing on a Scotish hillside, I don't agree with bringing in anything that could potentially cause harm to us or the balance of life we have in our wild.

Nature usually finds a way to keep things balanced.

A friend of mine in Finland had a dreadful time just before Christmas.   Wolves are apparently, protected over there.

She had her dogs (flatcoats of various ages and a PBGV puppy) in a  run behind her house, when she heard a rumpus.   A wolf had jumped the very high fence, and was killing and eating the PBGV puppy, which she absolutely adored.

No, thanks - I don't think we need wolves over here - we haven't got the space

Jo

Also just to add, as we know wolves travel in large packs, they are a social creature, not like our foxes at all, not easy to tackle like our foxes, a pack of hungry or protective wolves would not shy away from attacking a human especially a human child. And most of our dogs as Jo has already mentioned would have no chance against a wolf. :-(

I didn't think there were any documented cases of healthy wild wolves attacking humans?

www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html Found some! :-D

I agree though not many recorded attacks, but we are a small country, not having vast plains like America or other countries, it would only take a bad winter or a very hot summer to lessen a food source in some areas to cause wolves to stray into our safety zones.  Also as in dogs not all can be predictable,  there could always be a rogue character in the bunch.

But more importantly, I feel it could have a devastating affect on our mamals and livestock. :-(

How often do we have bad winters here nowadays? ;)

Latest news:  Wolf escaped from wild life park in Devon!  Not thought to be dangerous unless cornered.

Yes, honestly!  It really is a wolf!

There you go Jackjat what more can you say, containment can always go wrong, now it just needs to find another escapee and bingo loads of them bet they find  their way to my bin!!!!:rolleyes:

It's been recaptured now so Devon is safe!  I used to live only a couple of miles from the zoo it escaped from - that could have made an interesting dog walk!

See, I TOLD you it WAS a wolf!

:-D Tut, Tut

Put it this way JG, that poultry 2 days of snow that we had caused the local foxes to raid my bins rather than go out and look for a  nice fat squirrel or rabbit, their little paw prints left a nice trail all the way back to the woods.

Or perhaps they thought it too cold to go out looking for food and had a takeaway instead.;-)

I do believe we shall be having much worse weather over the decades both summer and winter and if the foxes are coming to me, I don't fancy a great big wolf.

They probably use your bins regularly - it's just that the snow showed where they're been!

"Wolves, which were hunted to extinction in Scotland in the late 1700s, would help control the numbers of red deer, the team from the UK and Norway said.  This would aid the re-establishment of plants and birds - currently hampered by the deer population, they write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B."

IMO you need a much better reason to introduce a new species or even re-introduce an old species.  Assuming that introducing wolves will automatically reduce deer numbers seems naive.  It also seems a strange thing to do as well as we have just had a ban on fox hunting thrust upon us because chasing and killing foxes by packs of dogs is cruel and yet here we are about to introduce wolves specifically to kill deer in much the same way.

It's a long time since wolves were part of this country and I would like to know how the introduction of a species like wolves would impact on our wildlife in general such as badgers and hedgehogs not to mention grazing animals such as sheep.

Sorry, had to pop out, in answer to your question JG, yes you are right the fox's and other wildlife frequently visit my property, but very, very rarely manage to tip my bin over to forage, this particular snowy day they did, properly because it was quite empty, but nethertheless even though I laugh about the visit to my bins, which I do! I do find it interesting that even though there is an abundance of small rodents, and mammals and birds as I have large fields and woodland around my property even with all that fresh food on tap to keep them in luxury and fat tummied, given a choice they still prefer a human dustbin.

Easy pickings maybe, but if fox's and other wildlife go for the easier option, I really don't see why a wolf would not also want my bin too, I doubt they would be any different to all other wild life, bin raiders.

>I do find it interesting that even though there is an abundance of small rodents, and mammals and birds as I have large fields and woodland around my property even with all that fresh food on tap to keep them in luxury and fat tummied, given a choice they still prefer a human dustbin

Humans are the same - how many people buy ready-meals or get a takeaway rather than cook? ;)

Foxes, particularly urban foxes, have lost their natural fear of man, partly due to proximity with them and partly due to human encouragement (deliberately feeding them, for instance). I bet you'd do all you can to scare away a wolf if you saw one by your bin!

In countries where there is a predator problem, such as Canada and Alaska with polar bears, it's an offence to encourage them near towns. If wolves are to live in harmony in this overcrowded country their avoidance of humans must be sustained.

I do have reservations about this scheme but I think anyone who does not know Scotland, perhaps, does not appreciate the wilderness areas there and how unlikely they are to encounter humans, certainly toddlers picnicing ;).  The Caingorms alone are the size of Wales so, given their natural inclination to avoid humans too, unless you are a regular Scottish hill walker with an aptitude for animal stalking, the chances of you seeing a wolf standing on hill are pretty remote indeed :)

I was driver for OH and friends when they walked the 3 Peaks last summer and so I witnessed first hand the herds of deer trotting across the Scottish roads in the pitch black.  Quite spooky as you can only just make out the moving shadows either side.  Presumably then the areas that people like to visit to escape the rat race are potentially the areas they are likely to come into contact with wolves? 

I still can't see the logic in introducing wolves to reduce deer numbers.  There are an awful lot of deer, how many wolves would you need to make a difference to the deer numbers?  Why can't they just cull the deer in the normal way and put cheaper venison on the butcher's board?

You haven't read the link have you Cheryl :)  It is very difficult and expensive to cull deer in Scotland, the ones you saw down by the road are probably from herds that are accessable and easy to cull but there are many more out beyond your view.  Like you though I wonder if we could be introducing another species that will be difficult to manage, more regarding their welfare than ours.   Historically introducing species has gone belly up on many occasions but then that tends to be ones that were not native at some time.  Who knows?  I believe it is a pilot though so maybe they will understand what they are doing by the time it could really go ahead.  I hope so anyway :rolleyes:

I did read the link but it doesn't add up to me.  What's the difference in reducing the number of deer by culling the easily accessible deer to the inaccessible deer?  Afterall the wolves will take what's more easily accessible whether it's a deer or something else. 

Why is it expensive to cull deer?  I don't know anything about it so I'd be interested to know why especially when this government was so keen to ban organised hunting.  I can't help thinking this could be a very big mistake if it went ahead.

I think it is expensive because of the huge areas to cover and the need for highly trained people to track them over that kind of terrain and decent marksmen toboot. 

For one thing the easily accessible deer are in different herds to the inaccessible deer; just because there's more food available in one area doesn't mean that those in a herd 50 miles away are any better off, just as building more houses in Lancashire doesn't help the homeless in Devon.

Culling wild deer involves stalking, which is still legal, not hunting with hounds.

I've just thought of another aspect of this which we haven't thought of:

If this idea goes ahead, I hope it doesn't but if it does apart from my previous concerns,
it's a bit like that nursery rhyme, 'There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly' she swallowed a spider to catch the fly etc...........

So we have an over population of deer, so we send in the wolves to eat the deer, (and anything else they fancy) Even if they just start off with 2 wolves a male and female (though I doubt it.)  And they will not be cubs, or very young wolves but mature adults, so I dare say by Spring they would have their first litter.  Now in the wild they may only breed once due to food shortage, competition etc, here they have no competition, they would be the highest preditor apart from us of course. :-) so due to this, I think they would have 2 litters a year here and fall in line with our dogs, (as has been shown with captive wolves) now even if just the Alpha pair mate (and in good seasons sometimes a second female may be chosen to mate with too) that is 12, maybe 24 pups a year from just 2 females.  Not to mention pups leaving and forming their own packs.

Now work that out over a few years, how will those numbers be kept in line, do we then bring in bears, crocs??? Or will the inevitable happen where man is given guns to cull the wolf numbers to keep them in order whilst our smaller mammals are also being depleted, by over population of wolves.

In 50 years as Isabel saw in the 1700's :-D That would just happen all over again.

You cheeky monkey   I do agree with your points there but I am not basing it on memory :rolleyes:

:-D LOL x

Don't forget to take infant mortality into account. Not all cubs will survive.