BY BERT BURNETT
This recent article Scotland: The Big Picture (SBP), which uses Slovenia as a model for potential lynx reintroduction in Scotland, is a textbook case of advocacy masquerading as objective analysis. It presents a seductive but profoundly misleading comparison, one that exemplifies a growing concern: you simply cannot trust these narratives when they peddle a partial story, economically with the truth to suit a pre-ordained agenda. This isn’t “Scotland the Big Picture.” It’s “Scotland: The Partial Story.”
The National’s article correctly notes that Slovenia is smaller and more densely populated than Scotland, and is home to bears, wolves, and lynx. This is the cherry-picked “good point.” It is presented as a simple, encouraging parallel: if Slovenia can do it, so can we. But this is where the narrative stops, and the deception by omission begins.
Firstly, the geographical comparison is absurdly flawed. Slovenia is attached to a vast continental landmass—the forests and mountains of the Dinaric Alps and the broader European ecosystem. This allows for natural genetic and population flux with neighbouring countries like Croatia and Italy. Scotland, by stark contrast, is part of an island. A reintroduced lynx population here would be a genetically isolated island on an island, a captive population in all but name, with no possibility of natural reinforcement from elsewhere. This fundamental difference in biogeography isn’t a minor footnote; it is the central, governing factor in any reintroduction’s long-term viability. To ignore it is either negligent or dishonest.
Secondly, and even more damningly, the article completely airbrushes the recent, catastrophic history of the very Slovenian lynx population it lauds. The Dinaric lynx population, originating from a tiny founder group in the 1970s, crashed due to intensive inbreeding. By the 2010s, they were on the verge of genetic collapse and functional extinction. The “growing population” SBP mentions exists only because of a second, emergency reintroduction program (2019-2024) where new lynx were brought from Romania and Slovakia to inject vital genetic diversity and avert total wipeout.
This isn’t a minor hiccup; it’s a screaming red siren. Slovenia’s experience provides the exact opposite of the simple success story implied. It proves that even within a vast continental landmass, a small, reintroduced predator population can founder genetically without constant, costly human management. The lesson is not “reintroduction works seamlessly,” but rather “reintroduction is the start of a permanent, intensive management commitment to prevent genetic collapse.”
The National’s pitch, by omitting these facts, is neither fair nor honest. It is certainly not fair on the lynx themselves, which could be sentenced to a future of the same genetic bottlenecks and management crises if introduced into our island confines. It is also not fair on the Scottish communities currently being consulted, who are being sold an incomplete prospectus.
The worrying subtext of Slovenia’s story is stark: without repeated human intervention, their lynx would have disappeared. There is a profound warning here for the rewilding movement: a fixation on the symbolic act of reintroduction, without a relentless, scientifically rigorous focus on long-term genetic and demographic viability, is mere ecological theatre. It creates fragile, garden populations dependent on perpetual human curation.
So, we must ask: are the rewilders clever enough to understand this warning? Or are they so enthralled by the idea of the lynx that they are willing to gloss over the complex, cautionary realities? A truly “big picture” view would embrace this complexity. It would present the Slovenian case in full—its early promise, its near-fatal crisis, and its ongoing, medically intensive care—as the crucial case study it is.
True environmental stewardship demands intellectual honesty. It requires telling the whole story, not just the convenient chapter that suits an agenda. Until rewilding organisations commit to that standard, treating the public as adults capable of grappling with nuanced truth, their advocacy will remain part of the problem—eroding trust and obscuring the very real challenges of living alongside, and responsibly stewarding, the wild.
Why behave like lying triggerers, the propagandists Packham and Monbiot, when you could simply tell the truth?
Bert Burnett is a retired gamekeeper of more than fifty years’ experience.