The Scotsman Bulletin Friday January 10 2025 #Lynx

The Scotsman

Dale and rural affairs correspondent Katharine Hay discuss the illegal release of a second pair of Lynx into the Scottish Highlands

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Friday.

00:05My name is Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Rural Affairs

00:10Correspondent, Catherine Hay. Catherine, I know we're going to get into talking about the mystery

00:16of the links very shortly, but I just want to flag the front page of today's Scotsman firstly.

00:22And we led on projections from analysis from the University of Edinburgh, suggesting by December

00:28next year if no action is taken, the waiting list for the NHS here in Scotland will hit 1 million

00:34patients. That's roughly one in every five people in Scotland on the waiting list. It's a pretty

00:40scary figure. And there were suggestions that there would need to be up to 20% effectively

00:48operations that weren't currently on the waiting list to go through to actually clear the COVID

00:52backlog. We know that there's 21 billion pounds of money in the budget that's going towards

00:59trying to improve health outcomes and how the health system's operating, but it is quite

01:05a confronting analysis and projections that have been put together, labelled terrifying by one

01:11opposition political party. You can read that story at scotsman.com. Catherine, I think the

01:16story that's fascinating, probably more of our readers and viewers though, is the links now.

01:22We know that there were two that were released, we believe, and then captured,

01:28but there's been a further development today. Can you tell us about it?

01:32Yeah, so it's interesting waking up this morning and seeing that the police had put out a second

01:37warning that two links are on the loose in the Highlands near Knewsie, which is the same area

01:46where we saw two links were captured. They were spotted on Wednesday afternoon, we got photos come

01:54through. And on Wednesday, so throughout the evening and the nighttime on Wednesday, those two,

02:00the first two that we saw were successfully captured. We've actually got some footage,

02:05which we can just show you quickly on those two first pair being captured on Wednesday night.

02:10Hello, you alright?

02:32Hi.

02:40Okay.

02:51Right, okay.

02:54So just to be clear, those were the first two that were successfully recovered. And now there

03:00are another two, as I said this morning, reported to be wandering around. So it means that at least

03:06there's been a total of four links that have been illegally released into the wild. That's

03:12certainly what the Cairngorms National Park Authority, which oversees the Cairngorms National

03:17Park, which is where these animals were found. That's what they're saying. And the police have

03:22also confirmed they believe it's a suspected illegal release of these big cats. What's quite

03:29interesting, I was talking to some conservationists yesterday. And before I get to the theories

03:37about the cats themselves, people have been telling me that they're clearly domesticated,

03:42because as you saw in the video, whilst they're a little bit timid, the people who are a believer

03:49with the Royal Society of Scotland Zoo charity, they are quite close to the animal. And links in

03:56the wild are incredibly shy. They're very easily spooked by humans. So it's quite unusual, yeah,

04:02if that was a wild cat, for it to be that close. The other observation is that the two were,

04:09they were clearly together, they were a pair. And I've been told that links are quite solitary

04:14animals. And so it's quite rare that you see them together. So it's another sort of justification

04:19as to maybe that they're domesticated, they came from a litter, and were bred, yeah, for domestic

04:26reasons. Now, some conservationists who are in the sector have been saying, there's obviously lots of

04:32different theories going around about where these cats have come from, and why they've been released

04:37into the wild. And some people are saying that there's possible a frustrated sort of campaigner

04:44who was wanting to release links back into Scotland after they became extinct about 1,000

04:50years ago. There's a chance that that might have happened. Obviously, we have no idea, for sure,

04:56and the police haven't confirmed, but that is just one of the theories going around at the moment

05:01that we're hearing from people who work quite closely together in the sector.

05:06Because, yes, also rewilding groups have, including Links to Scotland, which is a sort of group of

05:13three different charities working to try and push through legislation to allow Links to be

05:18reintroduced to Scotland. They've completely condoned the illegal release of these cats that

05:25we've seen, but they have at times expressed the sort of difficulty in getting through the

05:30red tape, as it were, to try and push forward releasing Links into Scotland. So just to be

05:36clear, the rewilding groups, a lot of them are wildland, where the Links, the actual estate owned

05:42by Wildland, which is a rewilding organisation, the Links were on their estate, but the chief

05:49executive of Wildlands has categorically said they were not involved in the release. They totally

05:54condone any illegal releases of animals into the wild. They just hope that, like other rewilding

06:01groups, Scotland the Big Picture, Links to Scotland, they just want there to be a sort of much

06:06more, yeah, well thought out legal kind of process that's much better for the well-being

06:14of the animal if we are to release Links into the wild. But yes, I think it sounds like

06:20across the board anyone who cares for animal welfare and who works in, whether it's rewilding

06:26organisations like Scotland the Big Picture or Links to Scotland or other conservationist groups

06:32like the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Scottish Land and Estates, they all are just,

06:39yeah, very outspoken about how bad this is for the welfare of the animal, that it's just been

06:44released illegally without much thinking and without obviously much planning, because it's

06:49been done sort of, yeah, in secret. Now Catherine, I'm glad you brought up that initially, the vision

06:56about the Links not sort of running away immediately when it comes into contact with

07:03obviously the welfare officer trying to catch it, that immediately struck me. Our viewers will have

07:08lots of questions, I mean I'm fascinated about this story as well, but do you think, and among

07:14them maybe, you know, when did the release happen? You've touched on who or what the motivations

07:19might have been for releasing them, why there's two on both occasions, and I'm sure there'll be

07:25more to come out around this, but look, do you think it's a setback? Because I know there's

07:30a push and there was almost plenty of momentum around gradually releasing some Links back into

07:36the wild, it's probably one animal that we're closer than ever to agreeing that we might trial it,

07:41do you think this is a setback to that? Yeah, I think just obviously with this line of work that

07:47I'm in, I talk to people from all various sides of the debate on the Links reintroduction program,

07:52and I can tell you that from the people who are less keen to the people who are very keen,

07:58there's just frustration across the board because there have been very productive

08:02conversations, very open dialogue in recent months, certainly better than what was in recent years,

08:08and just this sort of, yeah, blast of four things suddenly in the wild, I think it's been a real

08:14letdown for the, just for the whole sort of conversation and people coming together and

08:20having, you know, good thorough conversations about the process, because obviously there's

08:25pros and cons, there's worries, there's excitement, there's all sorts of different emotions about it,

08:29can understand totally from both sides, obviously they're a beautiful animal, they'll contribute to

08:34various, you know, parts of the biodiversity, various parts of the ecosystem, given,

08:40you know, they eat deer, which we have a big problem with in Scotland, we've got a lot of

08:44them, but then you can understand, they eat hoofed animals, so you can understand

08:48our livestock farmers would be concerned, so there's just so many different kind of elements

08:53to this debate, and it is a real shame that, certainly from what conservationists are saying,

08:57from rewilding groups to farm groups to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, that it's just

09:04really, yeah, set them back in terms of what progress was being made to kind of bring these

09:09groups together, which can at times be incredibly polarised. I think what we do know is developments

09:15around the Lynx release are not done with yet, there'll be more for you to read around, and

09:20hopefully have some understanding over coming days about why this has happened and what it may mean.

09:26Catherine will bring you all the very latest, so please keep across our website, scotsman.com,

09:32there's a section on the homepage of the site dedicated to Hayes Way, which is all of Catherine's

09:38content, so you'll be able to read all the latest there. Please follow us on Facebook,

09:42Instagram, Blue Sky, and go and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow, and enjoy your weekend when it comes.

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