Plan to reintroduce wolves to the UK
By Nicholas Hellen in London
14apr03
ONE of Britain’s richest men is in talks to reintroduce wolves into the island’s wilds for the first time in more than 250 years.
Paul van Vlissingen held talks at his remote Scottish lodge last Friday with British leaders of a wolf preservation scheme in Romania, home to a third of Europe’s large carnivores such as wolves and bears.
The wolves, along with lynxes, would be released by van Vlissingen on his 32,000ha estate. The project could lead to brown bears and bison eventually roaming Scotland.
Van Vlissingen, whose wealth is put at $1.09 billion in The Sunday Times Rich List, said he hoped the animals would become a tourist attraction. “Scotland has become a centre for sheeplife, not wildlife,” he said. “From the ecological point of view, sheep, not wolves, are the problem. We need far more Americans to come to Scotland, and wolves would give us a bit more wildlife to promote.”
The proposal will be taken seriously because of Van Vlissingen’s record in conservation. He pioneered a deal in 1993 for greater public access to private estates, and from 1993 to 1998 he helped to bring back sea eagles to Scotland, 80 years after they had died out.
In the past five years he has taken over the management of six large game reserves in southern Africa.
Imperial College London biology professor Mick Crawley, an authority on red deer, said there would be formidable political opposition to the wolves plan.
“Even if you fence them, you have to assume carnivores will escape and spread,” he said. Farmers would probably shoot the animals and demand compensation for the livestock they kill.
Although van Vlissingen insists the evidence shows wolves pose no risk to humans, he is working on an ingenious scheme to enable them to co-exist with sheep.
“I have talked to scientists who say it is not impossible,” he said. “It might be possible to give electric shocks to pregnant wolves if they get too close to sheep, and mothers will then teach their cubs to stay away from them. You could also occasionally give them a sheep’s carcass to eat, injected with a vomit-inducing chemical.”
The Sunday Times