BY CALUM CAMPBELL
Why the Lynx Reintroduction Fantasy Deserves to Stay Extinct
The High Court has finally done what common sense should have done years ago: it has stopped the Lynx UK Trust’s quixotic campaign to dump wild predators into the English countryside dead in its tracks.
Ms Justice Obi dismissed the Trust’s challenge over Natural England’s refusal to grant a licence for a three-year trial releasing three Swedish lynx into Kielder Forest. Her reasoning was blunt and devastating: “On Natural England’s understanding of the law, the proposed release could not lawfully be implemented.”
That’s judicial speak for: this was never going to fly.
And thank goodness for that.
Let’s be clear about what the Lynx UK Trust was actually proposing. Not a carefully managed conservation programme in some remote wilderness. No — they wanted to release three wild carnivores into Kielder Forest, a working landscape in Northumberland, and simply see what happened. This was the second attempt, remember. Their first application in 2017 — for six lynx over five years — was rightly rejected by Defra. Undeterred, they came back in 2022 with a scaled-down version. And now they’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that the law doesn’t allow it.
The Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 exists for a reason. It makes it an offence to release certain animals into the wild — and lynx are on that list. The Trust’s lawyers tried to argue that the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 somehow overrode this, that the DWAA had been “impliedly repealed.” The judge wasn’t buying it. “Properly construed, the DWAA continues to apply to lynx as a scheduled dangerous wild animal,” she said. That’s a comprehensive legal defeat, and it’s the right outcome.
But the legal arguments are only half the story. The deeper question is why anyone thought this was a good idea in the first place.
The Trust’s supporters trot out the usual lines: biodiversity benefits, deer population control, “rewilding.” It sounds lovely in a nature documentary. In practice, it means introducing a wild predator into a densely populated country where it has been absent for 800 years — not because of some ecological tragedy, but because our ancestors rightly decided they didn’t want large carnivores living alongside them.
And let’s not pretend the local opposition doesn’t exist. In July, Northumberland County Council passed a motion stating it would not support any effort to release lynx into the wild. Councillor Steven Bridgett, who proposed that motion, called the High Court result “excellent” — and he’s right. The people who actually live in and around Kielder Forest, who understand the landscape and the livestock and the day-to-day realities of rural life, have made their views clear. They don’t want this.
Yes, a consultation last year found 72% of respondents in the North East supported reintroduction. But consultations are easy to rig by mobilising urban environmentalists who will never have to deal with the consequences. The people who actually live with the land — farmers, shepherds, rural businesses — are the ones who pay the price when a predator starts taking sheep. Their concerns deserve more weight than a statistically convenient survey.
The lynx is a magnificent animal. No one disputes that. But magnificent animals belong where they belong — in the boreal forests of Scandinavia and Russia, where they have space, prey, and an ecosystem that evolved with them. Britain’s countryside is not that place. It is a managed, working landscape, and it has been for centuries. Dropping three Swedish lynx into Kielder Forest wouldn’t be “rewilding” — it would be reckless experimentation dressed up as conservation.
The Lynx UK Trust has now lost twice. Their legal arguments have been dismantled by a High Court judge. Their plans have been rejected by the regulator, by Defra, and by the local council. At some point, one hopes, they will take the hint.
Britain’s countryside has enough challenges without adding wild predators to the mix. The High Court has done us all a favour. Let’s hope this is the last we hear of it.
Calum Campbell is a commentator on rural and environmental issues in Scotland.