Christina Websell wrote:

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:


As I point out above, the argument that there is no room for them
IS nonsense, pure and simple. They would merely displace some of
the existing deer.

What deer? The only deer here are enclosed in Bradgate Park.

I suggest that you look at the references I gave. Even though the
relevant deer (roe and muntjac) are shy, solitary, woodland animals,
crepuscular in the case of the first and nocturnal and favouring
thick cover in the case of the second, and so are rarely seen by
the general public, the evidence of their existence and density is
clear for those with eyes to see.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I do not want Lynx here. Full stop. Deer are not a problem here, we just eat
them, venison is yummy.

But we aren't eating enough deer, by a long way - there are 100,000s in
the UK causing a huge amount of damage because there are no natural
predators.

Why don't you want Lynx? Reintroductions are happening in several areas
of Europe with no major problems, as far as I understand.

Larry

Christina Websell wrote:

"Larry Stoter" wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Larry Stoter wrote:

Christina Websell wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
Interesting reintroduction planned for specific areas, it's
worked
in some
other areas of Europe and we certainly need something to control
the
Deer.

http://www.lynxuk.org/

Absolutely NOT.

Oh, definitely yes.

Prefered prey is deer of which there are far to many in the UK -
because
there are no natural predators - causing all sorts of habitat
destruction.

Reintroduction of Lynx is already happening in large parts of Western
Europe and seems to be going fairly well.

Lynx would be a marvellous addition to many ecosystems.

Whatever you think, proposals for the reintroduction of Lynx are in the
pipeline, see:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...wilding-britai
n-wildlife-countryside?CMP=share_btn_tw

Unfortunately, due to the hysteria of the ignorant, it is unlikely to
be
in time to save many of the UK's woodland underplants and animals
(including birds and butterflies). I don't expect to live to see the
deer menace (and it IS an ecological menace) alleviated.

Nick Maclaren.

No deer menace in my part of the UK.

There are100,000s of deer across the UK - most people simply never see
them or are aware they are there. Apart from dropping, the failure of
woodlands to regenerate is a clear sign of lots of deer.

Larry

None here. Except in Bradgate Park. My neighbour claims he once saw a
muntjac in the fields at the bottom of our gardens. No reason to think he's
not telling the truth. I've lived here for 30 years and never seen any deer
near here.

In most places, very difficult to see deer - they are shy, generally
active morning/evening and spend most of their time hidden in thick
scrub in woodland.

Larry

In article , says...
In most places, very difficult to see deer - they are shy, generally
active morning/evening and spend most of their time hidden in thick
scrub in woodland.

Larry


Except in those areas where, thanks to deer, there IS no thick
scrub or woodland.. like much of the Scottish Highlands. Where deer are
easily visible *because they have no such cover*.
People wrongly assume that today's barren rocky landscape is what was
always there.

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/the-forest/

Janet.

Janet wrote:

In article , says...
In most places, very difficult to see deer - they are shy, generally
active morning/evening and spend most of their time hidden in thick
scrub in woodland.

Larry


Except in those areas where, thanks to deer, there IS no thick
scrub or woodland.. like much of the Scottish Highlands. Where deer are
easily visible *because they have no such cover*.
People wrongly assume that today's barren rocky landscape is what was
always there.

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/the-forest/

Janet.

Indeed - herbivores, unchecked by predators can totaly change landscapes
and ecosystems.

One of the most damaging is the goat which has stripped much of the
eastern Mediteranean - and unlike deer, goats are very good at climbing
trees ...

Larry

"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...

I do not want Lynx here. Full stop. Deer are not a problem here, we just
eat them, venison is yummy.

Not only lynx:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...n-wolves-bears



--
http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/shop/

"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 May 2015 09:53:07 +0100 (BST),
(Nick Maclaren) wrote:

In article ,
Larry Stoter wrote:

It is very interesting to see the completely different reaction on this
group to the reaction on uk.rec.natural-history.

Largely hysterical here, more 'yeah, so what" on uk.rec.natural-history.

Actually, it's about equally balanced here - it's just that the
hysterics are, er, more hysterical.

There is ample room for lynx anywhere there is a large muntjac or
roe population, or possibly even rabbit!, and Lincolnshire is very
definitely among those places. The smaller deer are a serious
ecological problem almost everywhere. They will have spread even
further by now, but were reaching densities of over 100 per square
kilometre, and there is almost no rural or woody suburban area
without large a large population of either roe or muntjac, which
is causing havoc to our woodland plants.

http://www.bds.org.uk/muntjac.html
http://www.bds.org.uk/deer_distribution.html
http://www.mammal.org.uk/muntjac
http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys...mal-monitoring

But I don't expect mere facts to have any effect on the hysterics.

I must protest! Opinions were expressed for and against the
introduction of lynx, some strongly felt on both sides. Neither was
any more hysterical than the other, just different. To claim one side
was hysterical is reducing the argument to one of 'ad hominem', which
is second-rate and always best avoided.

--


I don't think I was hysterical. I merely think introducing lynx is a bad
idea. If deer are a problem, introducing big cats back here is not the
answer.
When I said there is no room for them I didn't mean that physically, of
course there is plenty of land available, I meant that that is very unlikely
that they would be acceptable to most people in the UK.

"Malcolm Ogilvie" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 16 May 2015 00:26:19 +0100, "Christina Websell"
wrote:


"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Chris Hogg wrote:

Let's take one example: there is no room. Lynx are shy, solitary,
woodland hunters which prey on shy, solitary, woodland deer, and
(where present) have the effect of replacing some of the deer with
lynx. So it's obvious nonsense, and can be seen to be so by simple
data searches.

No, not nonsense. The arguments against the introduction of lynx were
not strong, I'll readily agree, and in fact I found your
counter-arguments quite persuasive. But the arguments against its
introduction were not hysterical. To describe them as such is 'ad
hominem' and ill befits a academic such as yourself.

As I point out above, the argument that there is no room for them
IS nonsense, pure and simple. They would merely displace some of
the existing deer.


What deer? The only deer here are enclosed in Bradgate Park.

However, the Leics and Rutland Wildlife Trust state on their website:

"In Leicestershire and Rutland Fallow Deer are mainly confined to
eastern Rutland and parts of north west Leicestershire, while the
smaller Muntjac is more widespread. Both of these species have been
introduced to Britain. The native Red Deer is only now found in
Bradgate and Donington Parks, apart from the odd escapee. The Roe Deer
is also a native species, and having been hunted to local extinction
centuries ago, it has recently spread back into Leicestershire and
Rutland. Deer browsing is a concern in parts of the counties, but not
yet to the extent that it is in other places, such as Breckland.
However, the situation does seem to be getting worse.

It is widely accepted that deer are more abundant and widespread now
than at any time in the past 1,000 years, and that deer are causing
significant damage to woodland habitats and the species that rely on
them. Due to a lack of natural predators, the role of human control
becomes more important, particularly when the conservation status of
native wildlife is threatened."

You have been warned!

Never seen a muntjac here. Nor a roe. If I do and they become a nuisance in
my garden, my neighbour has a licensed gun and we will share the venison,
it's my favourite meat ;-)
Reds & fallows are confined to Bradgate Park.
Even if deer were a problem here, I wouldn't be in favour of introducing
lynxes. Now that *would* introduce hysteria if we saw a lynx in
Leicestershire!
My colleague had a Bengal domestic cat, he was big and once he got out. The
neighbours thought he was some sort of leopard and called the police who
came out with guns.
Fortunately the police realised that Aragon was not a leopard and he didn't
get shot. Lynxes would have no chance.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article o.uk,
Dave Liquorice wrote:

(*) Unless they see the target as prey and about the only animal that
really views humans as "prey" is the Tiger.

No, that's a myth, though it is one of the more likely to attack
people when it gets too ill to take other prey. The ones that did
(past) and do (present) are African leopards and Nile crocodiles /
Sal****er alligators. The former naturally prey on baboons, and
humans are similar, but they stopped doing that as soon as humans
became a threat (they are very intelligent). The latter see
EVERYTHING as prey!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Disagree. Maybe not so much now, but tigers used to eat a lot of people in
India. I got books about it in the library when I was a child: I was
allowed adult books non-fiction when I was 12, and I can assure you that
man-eating tigers were common in India in the Raj period.
I remember those books well. My mother didn't know I got them. I just used
to like to scare myself with them.

I don't believe that every tiger in those days was injured it seemed that
often they saw people bathing in the river and they were easy prey. Of
course they ate people, why wouldn't they?
When I saw a tiger face to face (it couldn't get to me obviously) and saw
the size of its paws and how huge it was, I knew that no human would have a
chance against it.

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 03 May 2015 13:26:47 +0100, Phil Cook

wrote:

On 03/05/2015 12:43, Martin wrote:
On Sun, 3 May 2015 13:28:16 +0200, Michael Uplawski
wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2015 11:47:00 +0100,
Tim Watts wrote:

There is a simple solution to protecting yourself: don't be an
arsehole.

And if you get unlucky - let it attack you? No thanks.

There is a simple European truth to learn: You wern't and we aren't.
This "if the wolves attack your cows" thing and the "thanks to guns
there is less trouble" thing isn't applicable in a hypothetic
environment.

Wild boar definitely attack people without provocation. I've seen it
happen
quite close to Toulouse.

I rather think they don't. Where boar are hunted they are likely to
associate the bipedal animal in its territory as a threat based on
past experience. It is probably that the people unthinkingly provoke
the animal by cornering it or getting between it and its young.

The boar that tried to attack us came out of a corn field after we stopped
our
car to help two young women who had overturned their car on the old road
between
Toulouse and Carcassonne. We just beat it to our car. It chased the car
down the
road. Nobody had done anything to provoke it.
--

Martin in Zuid Holland



I believe you. I was in Germany with wild boars, and the best thing to do
is high tail it out of there if you hear them approaching. Normally they
are shy, but sometimes the old boys are not and can be quite dangerous.
There are so many wild boar in Lower Saxony that there are wooden towers in
the fields so the farmers can shoot them from above because they destroy
their crops.

"Janet" wrote in message
t...
In article ,
says...

No deer menace in my part of the UK.


Then you really don't understand the extent of the deer problem in
wilder areas than Lincolnshire.

Janet

I don't think reintroducing lynx is a good idea anywhere in the UK even in
Lincolnshire(I don't think Lincs have many deer either, but not sure as I
don't live there)
Try them on your island first for 5 years and let me know how it works.

In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:

Disagree. Maybe not so much now, but tigers used to eat a lot of people in
India. I got books about it in the library when I was a child: I was
allowed adult books non-fiction when I was 12, and I can assure you that
man-eating tigers were common in India in the Raj period.

Well, I am a colonial, and such books were common with me. What were
NOT common were man-eating tigers, but the sensationalist press simply
LOVED stories about them! Some of the bias was due to the selection,
some of them were enhanced, and others were invented out of whole
cloth. Yes, they were much more common than man-eating lions, but
they were not common.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 03/05/15 14:43, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:
In article o.uk,
Dave Liquorice wrote:

(*) Unless they see the target as prey and about the only animal that
really views humans as "prey" is the Tiger.

No, that's a myth, though it is one of the more likely to attack
people when it gets too ill to take other prey. The ones that did
(past) and do (present) are African leopards and Nile crocodiles /
Sal****er alligators. The former naturally prey on baboons, and
humans are similar, but they stopped doing that as soon as humans
became a threat (they are very intelligent). The latter see
EVERYTHING as prey!

I have a leopard shot by my grandfather for just that reason
in Assam back in the mid 30s. No, it doesn't have a CITES
certificate, since I inherited it in the early 60s.

On Thu, 28 May 2015 04:17:38 +0100, Christina Websell wrote:

I believe you. I was in Germany with wild boars, and the best thing to
do is high tail it out of there if you hear them approaching. Normally
they are shy, but sometimes the old boys are not and can be quite
dangerous. There are so many wild boar in Lower Saxony that there are
wooden towers in the fields so the farmers can shoot them from above
because they destroy their crops.

Miradors are commonly used in France (and I should imagine elsewhere in
Europe) as hunting platforms. The forests around here are full of them,
as are some fields.

We have boars that work the earth within tens of meters from the house.
They frequently come into the garden to eat berries and windfall. If what
you said were accurate, folks would be afraid to go out!

-E

--
Gardening in Lower Normandy

In article ,
says...

"Janet" wrote in message
t...
In article ,
says...

No deer menace in my part of the UK.


Then you really don't understand the extent of the deer problem in
wilder areas than Lincolnshire.

Janet

I don't think reintroducing lynx is a good idea anywhere in the UK even in
Lincolnshire(I don't think Lincs have many deer either, but not sure as I
don't live there)
Try them on your island first for 5 years and let me know how it works.

As a matter of interest, there is rumoured to be a large cat living
wild on Arran; possibly a puma ( described as all black the size of a GS
and with a very long tail). It's been spotted a couple of times.
Nobody seems to mind it. Farmers lose more lambs to crows and buzzards.

Janet.

"Malcolm Ogilvie" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 14 May 2015 08:59:08 +0100 (BST),
(Nick Maclaren) wrote:

In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:

There not room for lynxes (or wolves) to be reintroduced here and I just
wish people would stop banging on about it.
Yes once upon a time we had them, in the 17th century. i have enough
nuisance with foxes without lynxes or wolves being reintroduced.

You are factually wrong as regard lynx. There is ample room; whether
there is for wolves is more debatable, but the answer is "yes, with
reservations." Also, your implications are nonsense. Even the
wildest of foxes are naturally scavengers, and do not avoid humans;
neither lynx nor wolves are, and both do. Furthermore, there are
plenty of places where lynx come into contact with human habitation,
and there is essentially no problem.

So far, I have never seen anyone argue rationally against lynx;
every single one has used purely emotional fury. I could provide
some (weak and dubious) rational arguments against, but opponents
don't seem capable of even that.

Well said, Nick!

Tina, as usual one might say, puts emotion way ahead of facts,.
!!
the very idea of reintroducing lynxes here is crazy. If there is a deer
problem why cannot they be shot to reduce their numbers? I do like
venison.