Alladale's wilderness - seeing through the fence

摘要

Following the September 2008 conference on species reintroductions at Findhorn~1,the participants were hosted at three different projects across Scotland: Alladale in Easter Ross; Glen Affric; and Carrifran in the Southern Uplands. Of these, Alladale is pressing ahead with bringing back the wolf, lynx and bear, albeit in restricted enclosures, whilst Glen Affric~2a nd Carifran~3 are pursuing native wodland restoration with landscape-scale management, and only much later envisage the full spectrum of predator-prey relations. The Alladale project may not see itself as integral to the debate on predator reintroductions, but many others believe it has great influence given its tangible goals of having large carnivores in place soon,and its high profile in the media. In this article I discuss the strategic issues presented by the project.