Join Dr Hugh Webster and Dan Puplett on this fascinating day to learn about what life might be like living alongside a reintroduced lynx population in Scotland.
Across mainland Europe, the Eurasian lynx is staging a comeback. Freed from the pressures of unsustainable hunting and benefiting from a softening of public attitudes, this enigmatic feline has been successfully reintroduced into several countries and is now growing in numbers and expanding its range.
This special Learning Day will explore what a reintroduction in Scotland might look like, what challenges we might face and how we might manage coexistence.
We will also explore what it would be like to walk in the lynx’s footsteps once again, as we sharpen our senses to forgotten cues and learn how to identify and track pine martens, wildcats, badgers and foxes, comparing their behaviours and signs to those of a lynx. We will learn to think both like a lynx and like the lynx’s prey, experiencing the landscape through their eyes, ears and noses, as we seek to re-imagine how our woodlands would feel in the presence of this apex predator.
The Learning Day will cover:
An introduction to lynx ecology and behaviour
What a Scottish reintroduction might look like
How a lynx reintroduction could benefit Scotland
Remaining barriers to a lynx reintroduction and how they might be overcome
Thinking like a lynx - tracking skills and the art of silent stalking
Living with lynx - a fresh look at life (and death) through the eyes of a roe deer
This Learning Day is for you if:
you are a student, graduate or other individual interested in pursuing a career within the rewilding/species reintroduction sector
you are interested in learning more about this fascinating apex predator and its place in the Scottish landscape
you are a conservation/rewilding professional wanting to learn new skills