On lynx and bobcats

Native lynx are being re-introduced to Ireland, to control a burgeoning non-native deer population that is hybridizing with native deer and stripping the forest. According to the Irish tTimes, people completely lost their minds. You’d think someone was suggesting that they were planning to let loose African lions to hunt in the suburbs of Dublin at night. We had a similar hysterical reaction in North America when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone.

So these are some of my comments culled from a Facebook thread

Most of the fear-based comments in this thread are absurd. Lynx are not lions. And if they became extinct around 1,300 years ago, then humans were the culprit. The medieval era was all about hunting and killing everything off. 

According to Irish mythology, there were indeed larger native cats. The Voyage of Maelduin. Place names: Owenynagat. There was the cait sith, Cairbe Cinn-Chait, Old Cathead, the usurper. In Scotland, Cloch taghairm nan Cat, the myriad Clach a'Chath stones (probably from cath vs. cat); then there’s Clan Chattan. The wildcats were later associated with witchcraft, or against Christianity—and that ultimately led to their demise.

We have a type of lynx in rural California, the bobcat, a descendent of the Eurasian lynx, and though they occasionally get lucky and make off with a chicken, we rarely, if ever, see them. They don’t make off with lambs or calves, or attack children. They are shy, solitary nocturnal creatures, they don’t hunt in packs like wolves. We never see them. And they don’t seem to tangle with foxes who are much more destructive when it comes to livestock.

In fact, I see more foxes than bobcats who rarely leave the protection of the forest. Their range is the entire North American continent. No one loses livestock or children to rufous lynx, or to its cousin, the mountain, or Canada lynx. Lynx are not very large, about double the size of a housecat. Or a little larger than the Scottish wildcat. They weigh 40-60 lbs, and stand under two feet tall, they’re the size of a small sheepdog. 

A Sitka deer may be too big for a lynx to bring down. They are literally twice the size of a lynx, and outweigh them as well. We had two species of non-native deer (fallow, and axis) that were eradicated by hunters in Point Reyes National Seashore. So it is possible to hunt them down. 

Some bad news, the Sitka deer have hybridized with native red deer in the Scottish Highlands, a death sentence to the red deer gene pool. Sterilization/birth control will quell, but not eradicate the Sitka deer. Sometimes it is difficult but necessary to restore the balance of mother nature. Or all will be lost.