As my reader in the UK will know on television at the moment the BBC are broadcasting again there Autumnwatch season. I should explain to my overseas reader that this is the second year of doing this although for the last five years they have been broadcasting a similar programme in the Spring, yes you guessed it; Springwatch.
While I know that some people feel they don’t like the presenters, they seem to want their natural history/nature programmes to be rather po-faced, I actually enjoy the style. One of the things I love about the fact that they are live, is that we never quite know what is going to happen or if the animals, the real stars of the show, are going to turn up.
This being on has brought me in from the cold where I have been out watching Badgers and other wildlife, and made me appreciate the warmth of a cat on my lap and a cup of hot soup.
However, it is two of the animals that they have shown that sparks my wish to write here. Firstly are the beavers. Every night they are showing live images of a colony of wild European Beavers that have been breed at a compound with the hope of reintroducing them to the UK. As we lost our Beavers about five hundred years ago, I can see the difficulty in reintroducing them. As we would have to educate people to accept them, and we would have to learn how to change the way we manage our rivers to meet their needs. But on balance I think I am in favour of them being reintroduced.
The second animal though is a bit more controversial, Wild Bore. For many years now there has been a small population of wild bore that have re-established themselves, often as escapes from farming of the wild bore. Again this is an animal that was hunted to extinction, about seven hundred years ago, so while it was native to the UK its accidental reintroduction could be problematic.
The greatest problem is its interactions with people and specifically with people with dogs. Dogs and wild pigs don’t get on, and with wild bore having tusks, I can see some dog owners demanding “something is done” especially if a dog gets injured or killed. Then there will be the farmers who suffer losses from the damage they will do to crops. However, the biggest danger will be when the population starts to rise. As wild Bore no longer have any predators, we killed the Wolf off here about one thousand years ago, and there are no natural controls on the population size.
Thus I cautiously welcome this happening as well. I know that locally, though fortunately not in Chopwell Wood, there is a female wild bore on the loose. I have spoken to reliable witnesses of this fact, but also there appears to be no male in the area. Therefore the population is not growing here. But as this makes my nocturnal wildlife watching potentially dangerous, I have mixed feelings about knowing she is out there. That makes my personal preference for dealing with the actuality of wild bore being present in the UK even more controversial. I think there should be a reintroduction of the European Wolf into the UK.
Now I know that would upset almost everyone, but it would help to control the numbers of Bore, Deer and other potential pest species in the UK.
I doubt that it will happen, but it would restore the balance in nature.
While I know that some people feel they don’t like the presenters, they seem to want their natural history/nature programmes to be rather po-faced, I actually enjoy the style. One of the things I love about the fact that they are live, is that we never quite know what is going to happen or if the animals, the real stars of the show, are going to turn up.
This being on has brought me in from the cold where I have been out watching Badgers and other wildlife, and made me appreciate the warmth of a cat on my lap and a cup of hot soup.
However, it is two of the animals that they have shown that sparks my wish to write here. Firstly are the beavers. Every night they are showing live images of a colony of wild European Beavers that have been breed at a compound with the hope of reintroducing them to the UK. As we lost our Beavers about five hundred years ago, I can see the difficulty in reintroducing them. As we would have to educate people to accept them, and we would have to learn how to change the way we manage our rivers to meet their needs. But on balance I think I am in favour of them being reintroduced.
The second animal though is a bit more controversial, Wild Bore. For many years now there has been a small population of wild bore that have re-established themselves, often as escapes from farming of the wild bore. Again this is an animal that was hunted to extinction, about seven hundred years ago, so while it was native to the UK its accidental reintroduction could be problematic.
The greatest problem is its interactions with people and specifically with people with dogs. Dogs and wild pigs don’t get on, and with wild bore having tusks, I can see some dog owners demanding “something is done” especially if a dog gets injured or killed. Then there will be the farmers who suffer losses from the damage they will do to crops. However, the biggest danger will be when the population starts to rise. As wild Bore no longer have any predators, we killed the Wolf off here about one thousand years ago, and there are no natural controls on the population size.
Thus I cautiously welcome this happening as well. I know that locally, though fortunately not in Chopwell Wood, there is a female wild bore on the loose. I have spoken to reliable witnesses of this fact, but also there appears to be no male in the area. Therefore the population is not growing here. But as this makes my nocturnal wildlife watching potentially dangerous, I have mixed feelings about knowing she is out there. That makes my personal preference for dealing with the actuality of wild bore being present in the UK even more controversial. I think there should be a reintroduction of the European Wolf into the UK.
Now I know that would upset almost everyone, but it would help to control the numbers of Bore, Deer and other potential pest species in the UK.
I doubt that it will happen, but it would restore the balance in nature.
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