Touring exhibition for Northumberland lynx reintroduction scheme

Members of the public are being invited to a touring exhibition this month promoting the reintroduction of Eurasian Lynx to Northumberland.

The exhibition, which kicks off today [Thursday 11 April], is run by The Missing Lynx Project, a partnership between Northumberland Wildlife Trust, The Lifescape Project and The Wildlife Trusts.

The group believes an area including Northumberland and bordering parts of Scotland could support a population of the feline. Previous bids by a group called Lynx UK to introduce the cats into Kielder Forest were rejected by the UK Government.

The Missing Lynx Project want to reintroduce the feline to Northumberland (Martin Mecnarowski / commons.wikimedia.org).

Public engagement

Northumberland Wildlife Trust's Mike Pratt said: "We know that Northumbrians love wildlife and this is a chance to find out more about a missing part of it. We want people to come along to the exhibition and to find out if people like the idea of lynx being reintroduced and whether they would back a proposal.

"We've lost so much wildlife, and the jigsaw of life is really quite broken, so bringing back species like beaver and lynx could really help restore nature." 

Lynx has been successfully reintroduced in Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and Slovenia.

Big cats in Northumberland

The big cats mostly eat deer but the National Sheep Association (NSA) has said they would also prey on sheep. NSA Chief executive Phil Stocker said: "We do want to support biodiversity alongside productive farming but any reintroduction of lynx has welfare implications for sheep and an economic cost for farmers.

"However, we do welcome this group's approach in that they clearly want farmers to be part of the conversation."

The exhibition at venues including Kielder, The Sill and Hexham will be free and tickets can be booked online.