Conversations on the Lynx; with James Shooter

For our final Q&A in our Rewilding series, we were very happy to chat to James Shooter, host of the Rewild Podcast and Lynx ambassador. Last month, we launched our collaboration with SCOTLAND: The Big Picture and Scottish artist, KMG, with a collection of graphic tees and sweats that strive to showcase some of the species that play a pivotal role in SBP’s Rewilding mission. You can view the full Rewilding Collection  here .

James is the lynx ambassador at SCOTLAND: The Big Picture and with the potential for lynx reintroduction on the rise, we thought he’d be a great person to help us understand more about this majestic animal. Read on to find out more about the history of the lynx in Scotland, what wild lynx would look like in the Highlands, and what we can do to aid the rewilding mission.

I’m a photographer and filmmaker whose been involved with SBP since its inception. Storytelling is such a powerful tool for momentum building, and it’s great to be a part of a team that utilises many different angles to reach wide audiences.

Rather selfishly I wanted to experience rewilding efforts across the continent, so we packed up for a year and headed off. Starting a podcast allowed people to join us for the journey and enabled me to delve into the detail of various initiatives across the continent. Personally, I’m eager to lap up as much knowledge as possible about the natural world and how everything fits together – so I greatly enjoy chatting with experts and sharing that information with listeners along the way.

Quite nicely, I really enjoyed making the episode from Slovenia which was all about lynx reintroduction. I found it fascinating and hopeful that different stakeholders came together to make things happen. Hunters were integral to the lynx movement there and we can learn a lot from projects like this where folk have found common ground to move things forward.

As a photographer, you need to be able to tell a story in a single frame. It can be challenging to encapsulate a theme in a photograph, but we try our best. When you get it right, visual communications can be a really powerful tool to take people on a journey. Photography has the ability to teach us something, inspire us, move us. With a constant barrage of content online, you have to be able to grab someone immediately.

No. But I have been in lynx territories. Walked on paths that lynx have walked on andbrushed past trees that lynx have too. And that for me is exciting enough. Of courseI’d love to see one, but just being somewhere in their presence gives off a sense of thewild we just don’t have in Scotland, yet.

I think lynx really encapsulate the wild. They’re the ghosts of the forest, silently stalking through their woodland realm, only ever letting themselves be seen by a lucky few. Their presence brings a sense of magic and mystery – this is a large part of why we all fall in love with nature in the first place.

It’s hard to say exactly when they disappeared from Scotland. The most recent radiocarbon-dated bones were from the early medieval period, so 1,000 to 1,500 years ago. There are a few cultural references and artworks that suggest it could have lasted longer, but it’s impossible to tell from those alone. It’s likely the lynx disappeared due to a combination of direct persecution, habitat loss and a reduction in prey abundance.

I think the lynx really captures people’s imagination for what could be possible. We’ve lost all of our apex predators, and so the thought of one returning is exciting for many people. Of course, there are also those who don’t wish to see an apex predator returned. We’ve lived without them for so long, outside any of our living memories, that it’s a completely new mindset we’ll all have to relearn. There may well be challenges, but there’s also a lot of hyperbole about what would happen. To put it in context, a lynx is roughly the same size as a Labrador, hunts by itself and makes a real effort to avoid people across their range.

As an ambush predator, many people think that lynx require thick woodland, but they don’t necessarily, they just require cover from which they can launch a surprise attack. That said, where woodland and their favoured prey, the roe deer, go hand in hand, they utilise that above all else. There’s no question about deer being in plentiful supply, and with woodland expansion creeping up, they’ll have an increasing amount of useful habitat to hunt in. I have no doubt that they’d do well in Scottish landscapes and hope that corridors of connecting habitat continue to link up.

They’re not going to be a silver bullet to getting deer numbers down, we’ll need to utilise human deer managers for a long time into the future, but they’ll certainly assist with the process – providing the natural function year round and it will be fascinating to see how their prey’s behaviour might also change with a natural predator coming back onto the scene. Interestingly, research from the continent also suggests they would suppress mesopredators, like foxes, too. So it’s not just deer that lynx would affect, and these are natural processes we’ve been missing for centuries.

The ecology of an area has an intricate web of natural processes that link to one another, keeping an ecosystem strong and healthy. When some of those strands are missing, the ecosystem becomes weaker and less resilient. Returning a top predator has the potential to kickstart a suite of processes like predator-prey interactions, returning large carcasses to the landscape, mesopredator suppression and so on.

They’ll help to keep a check on overall numbers of prey species. They’ll also keep prey populations healthier, by selectively taking out the old and the sick as easier individuals to target. Overall this lowers the impact of herbivory on any given site, allowing new tree growth and ground vegetation a chance to recover.

From a safety point of view, I’d say the danger to humans is almost zero. There’s nota single recorded death from the lynx’s entire range across Eurasia, and only a handful of hard to verify anecdotes about lynx attacks. There are legitimate concerns about livestock – lynx can, and do, take sheep across their range – but with the right mitigation in place this can be brought down to a minimal amount. If you look at countries across Europe, the further east you go, the less issues there seem to be, as traditional shepherding and the use of guarding dogs are still prevalent. I personally would like to see a proactive move to start further assisting farmers with livestock protection.

The best thing you can do is to inform yourself and others of the realities of living alongside a species like lynx. They won’t be as bad as the loudest arguments against them suggest, and equally, they won’t be without any challenges whatsoever. It’s important for all of us to equip ourselves with the knowledge available and to work on facts, rather than hearsay. Our book, 'The Lynx and Us', is a really great start for an informative read on what it might be like to live alongside them once again. It draws on experience from across the continent, to open up an honest discussion on the challenges and benefits of a possible reintroduction to Scotland. You can download it for free, make up your own minds and send it on to others.

The Rewild Podcast is available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, Podbean and Amazon Music. You can check all the episodes out here.

We've always been lovers of the outdoors and are passionate about helping the environment we live in thrive. 10% of sales from our Rewilding graphic tees and sweats will be donated to SCOTLAND: The Big Picture and their mission. SBP are also a part of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, who are calling for Scotland to become the world’s first Rewilding Nation and sign the charter, which calls for 30% of Scotland’s land and seas to be committed to rewilding. If you also want to help support, you can sign the charter  here !