New research shows Northerners and people of Scottish borders support reintroducing lynx to the region - The Wildlife Trusts
Evidence shows that lynx released in Northumberland would thrive and stretch into bordering parts of Cumbria and southern Scotland
A year-long social consultation has found that 72% of people in the project area of Northumberland, bordering areas of Cumbria and southern Scotland, support potential lynx reintroduction. Lynx used to live in Britain until the medieval period when they died out due to hunting and habitat loss.
The consultation was run by The Missing Lynx Project, led by The Lifescape Project in partnership with Northumberland Wildlife Trust and The Wildlife Trusts. The consultation report provides the initial findings of local people’s attitudes towards lynx reintroduction and their level of support.
Now the project is working with people in the region to discuss how a potential reintroduction could be managed if it were to progress further. The partners are also urging people across the UK to find out more and have their say through a national questionnaire.
Over a thousand people in the project area filled in a detailed questionnaire in the project area. The regional consultation – which is ongoing – included:
- Almost 10,000 visitors attended the touring Missing Lynx exhibition over 103 days
- >100 stakeholder meetings and one-to-one interviews with community, farmers, landowners, foresters and businesses; 12 workshops were also held
- 1700 people completed individual questionnaires (of these, 1073 respondents lived in the project region)
The results coincide with the publication of a new peer-reviewed paper produced by the project, ‘Exploring the ecological feasibility of restoring Eurasian lynx to Great Britain using spatially explicit individual-based modelling’. This research shows that a release of 20 lynx over several years into the Kielder forest area would, over time, create a healthy population of about 50 animals covering north-west Northumberland, the edge of Cumbria and the bordering areas of southern Scotland. It also reveals this is the only area of England and Wales with enough extensive woodland for lynx to thrive.
Posted On: 07/08/2025
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