Why we should learn to live with Wildlife

Here in the UK, the re-introduction of the lynx back into its native homeland of Great Britain is being seriously considered.

 For conservationists this would be a huge victory as by re-introducing this wildcat, it not only improves the ecological health of the landscape due to the presence of a vital long lost predator (especially since wild deer populations continue to grow and remove vegetation from the environment due to lack of predation), but also acts as a way of making up for humans hunting these animals to extinction over 1,000 years ago.

Many conservationists do not want to stop with the lynx, but would like to re-introduce larger native animals such as Bears and Wolves back into Britain. However many other people are worried about conflicts between animals and humans in Britain in terms of human safety and loss of farm livestock, and therefore refute most re-introduction projects. 

This world-wide state of mind of putting humans before animal conservation in my opinion needs to change. Many wild species that survive on planet earth today are endangered due to human development, overhunting and general persecution at the hands of people, and biologists and conservations work tirelessly to improve their chances of survival. But this is made ever more difficult by the backlash that occurs by the general public at the news of some sort of injury or accident at the hands of animals. 

For example, in London 2 years ago, news hit the newspapers that a young child had been bitten on the finger by a red fox (which are very common in london, and mostly left alone by the public). Soon after, the news was full of articles claiming that foxes are dangerous, and that a cull may be in order to decrease their populations, even though these animals will only attack when threatened and are otherwise harmless and mostly fearful of people. In other countries such as India and parts of Africa there are many examples of farmers killing predatory wild animals so they do not feed on their livestock such as tigers and leopards. 

Understandably people are concerned at the sight of wild animals, as obviously many animals can in fact be dangerous to the safety of humans, and people have indeed been killed by wild animals that have entered human environments. However, us human beings have and continue to destroy wild habitats and place our human developments in their place. This leads to a decrease in land size for wild animals, which will cause more and more wildlife to enter our man terrain in their search for food and/or mates. 

I personally believe we should attempt to cohabit with wildlife native to the land we ourselves live on, as animals deserve to survive as much as we do, and will usually be of benefit to the land they evolved in, and were sadly removed from.  So before turning on wildlife, planning culls and turning our noses up at the idea of re-introductions, the thought of incorporating  wildlife in our human world and learning to survive alongside them in a safe and sustainable way should be our first priority.

-Thomas Glen