Wild camping and bears and wolves

[mercalia]

seems like you will have to be careful where you wild camp in the forest of Dean as Bristol Zoological Society’s Wild Place Project has some of them there. It seems this is part of a debate on rewilding. some more nutcases at work? I dont think I want bears and wolves running around our country side so a stupid idea, serves no purpose than as an "attraction". They had their time and good riddance. if I wanted to risk being attacked by a wild animal I would go an live in the out back of the USA or Australia and other countries. The good thing about this country is that we are at the top of the food chain?

seems like Dr Christoph Schwitzer believes there is also a good argument for reintroducing larger creatures such as lynx to remote areas such as the Scottish highlands. “That may be worth trying. A population of 300 or 400 lynx might be viable,” he said.

I think he has watched Jurassic Park too many times



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... nt-forests

[richardfm]

seems like you will have to be careful where you wild camp in the forest of Dean as Bristol Zoological Society’s Wild Place Project has some of them there. It seems this is part of a debate on rewilding. some more nutcases at work? I dont think I want bears and wolves running around our country side so a stupid idea, serves no purpose than as an "attraction". They had their time and good riddance. if I wanted to risk being attacked by a wild animal I would go an live in the out back of the USA or Australia and other countries. The good thing about this country is that we are at the top of the food chain?

seems like Dr Christoph Schwitzer believes there is also a good argument for reintroducing larger creatures such as lynx to remote areas such as the Scottish highlands. “That may be worth trying. A population of 300 or 400 lynx might be viable,” he said.

I think he has watched Jurassic Park too many times



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... nt-forests

Are you exaggerating for effect or just ignoring a lot of what the article says?

seems like you will have to be careful where you wild camp in the forest of Dean

No you won't, they are in an enclosure.

I dont think I want bears and wolves running around our country side so a stupid idea

No one is proposing that bears and wolves will be "running around our countryside" and anyway, an idea is not stupid just because you don't want it.

[Cyril Haearn]

The fence might not be strong enough to keep them in, someone might leave a gate open
At least all the five wolves are male so they cannae have kids

I fear the bears and wolves shall kill each other, just like back then

[richardfm]

The fence might not be strong enough to keep them in, someone might leave a gate open
At least all the five wolves are male so they cannae have kids

I fear the bears and wolves shall kill each other, just like back then

The fence might not be strong enough but that is highly unlikely. I think you'll find it was humans who killed the bears and wolves, causing them to become extinct in the UK

[mercalia]

The fence might not be strong enough to keep them in, someone might leave a gate open
At least all the five wolves are male so they cannae have kids

I fear the bears and wolves shall kill each other, just like back then

The fence might not be strong enough but that is highly unlikely. I think you'll find it was humans who killed the bears and wolves, causing them to become extinct in the UK

wasnt there a case recently of a bear climbing out of its enclosure.

if they can climb trees they can cimb fences? after they get bored with their tiny patch

its the thin edge of the wedge.

Dr Christoph Schwitzer wants to have lynx running wild in Scotland just to see what happens

[Cyril Haearn]

I have a cuddly bear, a little teddy 15cm, she is a great comfort to me

How big are the bears? Anything Could Happen if one got out, even though this may be very unlikely
Went to a talk about wild beasts in Africa, there are no elephant-proof fences, explained the expert
He described how a lion attacked some hunters who climbed up a tree to escape, the lion fetched down one person, ate him, was still hungry, fetched and ate the second. The third survived to tell the tale

[Oldjohnw]

Neither Lynx nor wolves would bother you. They will reduce excessive deer and grey squirrel populations.

[Tigerbiten]

I've looked it up ..........

Studies have shown a healthy wolf pack has a range of upwards of 50 sq miles.
They need that area due to predator/prey ratios.
The forest of Dean is characterised by more than 42 sq miles of mixed woodland.
So a fence around the whole area would work .............
Otherwise it's just a release in a type of safari park.

The release of Lynx's sounds like a slightly better idea.
That's as long as it doesn't affect the endangered Scottish Wildcat and/or Pine ?Marten.

Luck .........

[Jon Lucas]

Er, I hate to break it to you all, but this isn't in the Forest of Dean.

If you read the article carefully you will see it says views across the river Severn to the Forest of Dean.

It's actually on the edge of Bristol, close to the M5 and major trading estates and shopping malls.

The bears have been there a while now. I understand that the other animals are being introduced over a period of weeks to see how they all get on.

[Cyril Haearn]

What about the lions of Longleat?

[hamster]

The absence of apex predators is a huge problem where I live: the New Forest. It's essentially dead as there is no regeneration, due to excessive deer browsing of seedlings. There needs to be half the population of deer, which breed rampantly as there is nothing to check numbers and people hate the idea of bambi being shot. The Hampshire Wildlife Trust for one is keen for increased culling.
My neighbouring estate just outside the Forestry Commission land (but in the National Park) shoots over 70 red deer a year and I see it as my duty to eat some of them.

Alternatively you could reintroduce predators.
If you look at the data on the turnaround in Yellowstone's flora and fauna with the reintroduction of wolves you may change your mind.

I have wild camped in the US, in cougar and grizzly country. You have to take precautions, but they are minimal. Cougars are in the hills above Silicon Valley, friends have seen them when cycling on day rides.
If you don't like it go to Eurocamp, stay in on mown grass and in sometihng like a human penguin colony. Personally I like the world wild.

[Vorpal]

I've been wild camping in areas with bears and wolves. The main thing is not to keep food (or other possibly tasty things like toothpaste or juice) in your tent, but to hang it in a tree where a bear cannot reach it.

As for serving no purpose...
[youtube]ysa5OBhXz-Q[/youtube]

[Mike Sales]

CLIMBING through the January snow, into the Lobo canyon
Dark grow the spruce-trees, blue is the balsam, water sounds
still unfrozen, and the trail is still evident.

Men!
Two men!
Men! The only animal in the world to fear!

They hesitate.
We hesitate.
They have a gun.
We have no gun.

Then we all advance, to meet.

Two Mexicans, strangers, emerging out of the dark and snow
and inwardness of the Lobo valley.
What are they doing here on this vanishing trail?

What is he carrying?
Something yellow.
A deer?

Qu' tiene, amigo?
Leon

He smiles, foolishly, as if he were caught doing wrong.
And we smile, foolishly, as if we didn't know.
He is quite gentle and dark-faced.

It is a mountain lion,
A long, long slim cat, yellow like a lioness.
Dead.

He trapped her this morning, he says, smiling foolishly.

Lift up her face,
Her round, bright face, bright as frost.
Her round, fine-fashioned head, with two dead ears;
And stripes in the brilliant frost of her face, sharp, fine
dark rays,
Dark, keen, fine rays in the brilliant frost of her face.
Beautiful dead eyes.

Hermoso es!

They go out towards the open;
We go on into the gloom of Lobo.
And above the trees I found her lair,
A hole in the blood-orange brilliant rocks that stick up, a
little cave.
And bones, and twigs, and a perilous ascent.

So, she will never leap up that way again, with the yellow
flash of a mountain lion's long shoot!
And her bright striped frost face will never watch any more,
out of the shadow of the cave in the blood-orange
rock,
Above the trees of the Lobo dark valley-mouth!

Instead, I look out.
And out to the dim of the desert, like a dream, never real;
To the snow of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the ice of
the mountains of Picoris,
And near across at the opposite steep of snow, green trees
motionless standing in snow, like a Christmas toy.

And I think in this empty world there was room for me
and a mountain lion.
And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might
spare a million or two of humans
And never miss them.
Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white frost face
of that slim yellow mountain lion!

Mountain Lion by D.H.Lawrence.

[Bmblbzzz]

What about the lions of Longleat?

They are Russian spies, spreading terror among the good people of Salisbury.

[pete75]

Whenever I put a tent up on the lawn our cats seem to find it very interesting. I wonder if Lynx share this feline curiosity about tents?