Rewilding

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  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2019 #62

    Tarzan seemed to manage but then he didn't just have a 3'' folding penknife!

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2019 #63

    Plenty of wild boar in the Forest of Dean

    According to Forestry England there have been some attacks. I bumped into a sow with piglets some years ago ..... when I was more agile. She charged before I really saw her. It could have indeed been a mock charge ...... I didn't stay to find out! wink

  • Goldie146
    Goldie146 Club Member Posts: 2,448 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #64

    Moving away from the imposed introduction of various species, if you are interested in Rewilding in it's widest sense, you may like to follow a friend of ours on Twitter - James Rebanks.

    Click here and go back through his posts to read not just about "rewilding" bur "rewiggling" (a river).

    CLICK

     

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2019 #65

    We have some friends living in  The Forest of Dean and there have been several "near misses" with Wild Boar sows with young mostly with visitors not knowing how to be wary around themsurprised

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2019 #66

    Or in my case being seen before seeing. 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #67

    There are also several accounts, some fatal, of the domesticated 'variety' of wild boar attacking humans. However, far, far more attacks have been recorded by domesticated varieties of the wolf. But we still let them, dogs, into our homes and communities.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2019 #68

    As Martin Clunes says in his programme about dogs ,any breed of dog you have in your house is descended from a wolfsurprised

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #69

    We too came across a sow with piglets in the New Forest. The young had found their way into a field though some pig netting. The sow, who could not follow, seemed more interested in keeping in 'touch' with her inquisitive offspring than with us who kept at a safe and reasonable distance. Nature viewing in the raw and I felt honoured to watch them but then I did live to tell the tale and the family group vanishes almost as quickly as we spotted them. Good to have encounters like this.

  • Rocky 2 buckets
    Rocky 2 buckets Forum Participant Posts: 7,101
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    edited October 2019 #70

    Geez, you crack me up that last line is classic DD-🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,134 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #71

    + 1. Unreal 🤪

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #72

    Some years ago, at the start of CT, I posted about this sighting with some photos we took. Unfortunately I can now find neither despite just searching for them. However, I recall the sow was definitely not Wild Boar but possible a feral pannage pig. Thing was that some of the piglets appeared to have very faint stripes which made me think. But there again I know little of the porcine apart from the taste and crunch of crackling with apple sauce.

    Not related to my encounter but of interest to some maybe!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/29/pigs-rampage-new-forest-ramblers-charged-bitten/

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #73

    Unfortunately Micky humans do far more damage to each other than animals do to humans.

    However would I enjoy walking through a North American wilderness and meeting a grizzly, probably not. There is space for wild animals in countries which have space but here in the uk our space is limited. We have to spend a lot of time and effort "managing" the species we already have in order that they survive in good health and in good habitats.

    Animals like wolves can start to kill each other in the wrong set up (this happened in the Highland Wild Life Park a few years back.) Animal management is a tricky thing and encouraging tourists to view them only adds to the stress and unnatural habitat, even in so called "wild" areas.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #74

    We do Brue, but there again I'm not advocating the Rewilding of any of these top predators at all. The ones and environments I'm suggesting are far less of a danger to you and me or our loved ones. We have nothing like the wildernesses of North America but there is much we can do in our country to support those habitats and creatures we have so adversely effected or eradicated. Like I said early in the thread some folk just focus on the 'big preditors' whenever Rewilding is mentioned, let's start at the bottom of the habitat pyramid and work up, there is much healing to do. There are several creatures which we could assist in reintroducing and some of these may even be a benefit to many of us. It's about having a sensible standpoint and the wish and will to help Nature, that's what I'm advocating.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #75

    The burbot became extinct in England around 1970. I remember the articles written at the time about the capture of what was believed to be the last creature. There have been muted suggestions of reintroduction into the Wash Land water courses but nothing has come about. I just wonder why, it was considered a delicacy but also pretty ugly (pardon the oxymoron). Some we may lose (or have lost), some we may win! Question is which ones?

    However, the demise of this creature may just be a warning to us all of our effect on the warming planet.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #76

    Maybe it's around somewhere, Angling Times had an article about them. smile (We don't get to see what's in all of our rivers, some are hardly touched in places.)

    I'm all for a bit of unbridled nature closer to home, habitats for nature in our own back yards for starters. It's something everyone can do rather than expect someone else to do it in a nice big wood somewhere we want to go to for our holidays. Not quite sure, in your OP Micky why we should use creatures like Lynx to attract tourists? frown

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2019 #77

    I had forgotten about the burbot. Never seen one in the wild of course. I would have had its image on a Brooke Bonds teas card. I had an uncle that was a local delivery driver for Brooke Bond around the Manchester/Hyde Area. He used to get me the books and all the sets of cards. 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #78

    Not quite sure, in your OP Micky why we should use creatures like Lynx to attract tourists? 

    Solely because it was quoted in the article mentioned in the OP relating to the German region of Herz. Quite a success apparently in economics, nature rebalancing and tourism terms. There are no known dangerous 'encounters' with humans and they apparently predate deer! Bit like the honey buzzard they stray little for their primary prey source and deer are consider problematic in many areas. Gove turned down an application to reintroduce these in the Keilder Water area earlier this year although the reasons given were somewhat questionable. 

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2019 #79

    Gove turned down an application to reintroduce these in the Keilder Water area earlier this year

    Was that the Lynx?

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,586 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #80

    Even "bottom up" Rewilding has its problems Micky. In the natural world something is always being predated by something else and that something else has a consequence on the natural environment. Think Grey Squirrels and what they've done to our UK habitat. Think Signal Crayfish, brought in eradicate disease in our native ones only to be found to be carriers themselves.

    So before any Rewilding takes place serious thought has to be given to the long term effect of such introduction.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #81

    Absolutely, lessons learnt and all that! I think mind we are talking once recent indigenous species but even then the greatest care is called for!smile

  • Fisherman
    Fisherman Forum Participant Posts: 2,367
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    edited October 2019 #82

    What we here in Mid Wales object to is some rich South of England cabal deciding that Rewilding Mid Wales is their goal. They have a massive war chest with which to seduce the myriad of unaccountable Rural Quangos and so called charities. The idea is to bulldoze their ideas through us the population.  Again we ask why dont they do it in their own back yard ie The Downs and New Forest. Many here already say there are too many deer so the food source is there, not trampling on Owner owned sheep flocks. We have long memories of the Imperialist drowning our villages for their own water needs. hence "Cofiwch Tryweryn". 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #83

    I still don't know what underpins this or the ultimate goal! What is it all about? Can you elaborate on what It aims to achieve. Who is behind it, what is the objective, what is the aim? I haven't a clue and so can't comment about any of it.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,586 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #84

    What we here in Mid Wales object to is some rich South of England cabal deciding that Rewilding Mid Wales is their goal

    Well it will be the first time that anyone in Westminster has been interested in Mid Wales!

    Anyway what does Natural Resources Wales have to say seeing as they're answerable to the Senedd? You've told everyone who reads this thread that you object in the strongest possible terms to whatever it is that is proposed, on more than one occasion, but haven't expounded on what the proposed Rewilding is.

  • Navigateur
    Navigateur Forum Participant Posts: 3,880
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    edited October 2019 #85

    I think a good place to start rewilding would be the sterile carpark-like caravan sites, which could be turned back into meadow grass (well drained, of course).

  • rayjsj
    rayjsj Forum Participant Posts: 930
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    edited October 2019 #86

    We dont ALL push pens and speak from our armchairs, some of us get involved physically trying to help wildlife.I must say that if you do fish the rivers in Mid and West Wales you havent noticed the reduction in Salmon and Trout in some or even most rivers ? I was witness to a massive toxic slurry spill on the Teifi and its aftermath was horrendous. All due to sloppy and careless methods in Modern Farming. Slurry is a massive problem.

    If Farmers purport to be Guardians of the Countryside then they had better try harder at proving it.  NOT from Hampshire or Sussex but rural North Pembrokeshire.

     

     

     

  • Fisherman
    Fisherman Forum Participant Posts: 2,367
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    edited October 2019 #87

    rayjs- Different issue altogether and as a fervent fisherman close to my heart. Almost no salmon now returning to or river this Autumn and I anticipate extinction within 10 years, Seatrout and native brown trout following the same fate. Yes farmers are to blame and Natural Resources Wales are useless at enforcing sanctions.  In fact they ae not fit for purpose

    Wherenext- do some research. It is complex but essentially, turning a large swathe of land ( none of course owned by the exponents) into a wilderness and reintroducing extinct species. Local owners forbidden to protect their own livestock. Again why not in their back yard. The main proponent and financier is the TetraPak heiress we understand. Do it in the New Forest

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2019 #88

    I understand that the main reason that some farmers are saying how they are "guardians" by not grubbing out so many hedges and leaving areas of land including the wildlife areas on the edge of arable fields is because of the money they receive to do itsurprised

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2019 #89

    I see where this is coming from now as I looked up Fisherman's local area and it's all there to read.

    Rewilding Britain LINK

    The scheme ideas come from a book written by one person named in the details on this link.

    I'm all for improving natural habitats but also think that local systems have been built up over years and change can only happen gradually when everyone feels comfortable about new ideas. 

    eg introducing Lynx (as proposed by this group) seems at odds with the local community. 

  • rayjsj
    rayjsj Forum Participant Posts: 930
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    edited October 2019 #90

    Industrial sized Farming buildings are a Blot on the Landscape, with NO planning resrtrictions , and YET  these intentsive Dairy 'Factories' are producing massive amounts of Toxic slurry, Hundreds of huge slurry tankers coming to a field near YOU. And because of run-off to your local stream and river.

    Re- Wilding !! We need de- Industrialisation of Farming first.

    Rant over,  my local area is drowning under slurry, That sweet sickly Dairy slurry smell is everywhere. Dont talk to me about Wilding.

    The introduction of the White Tailed Eagles to Mull in Scotland has increased tourism to the local area massively, however after so many successful broods, WHY havent they  spread across the Highlands ?

    Grouse moors and shooting estates are the answer.

    In the end the stupidity and the greed wins over. So sad.

  • Fisherman
    Fisherman Forum Participant Posts: 2,367
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    edited October 2019 #91

    White tailed Eagles are seaborn birds whose main food source is fish. Not that much in the Highlands to feed them., but off the sea in Mull. The Golden Eagle is making great strides in its increased reign as its food source is mainly Deer. Again do your research.