Reintroduction & Rewilding

[Sanju]

Scottish Furniture Heir plans to bring Wolves and Bears back to Scotland

Paul Lister, self-professed animal enthusiast and heir to the MFI furniture fortune, is taking a big leap to bring back wolves and bears to Scotland. He plans to create the unusual wildlife reserve on his 23,000 acres of land in Sutherland just 60 miles west of Inverness.
 

After buying his estate ten years ago, Lister has overseen the planting of more than 800,000 native trees. He has also launched conservation programs to protect native species which are under threat such as the Scottish wildcat and red squirrel.

His latest and more ambitious wolf and bear plans involve building a massive fence enclosing a 50,000-acre plot where the animals would be free to roam. He explained all this recently by saying, "We're going to do a feasibility study on the big vision and the vision is to have a minimum area of 50,000 acres, have a fence around it, and bring back wolves and bears into that area."

"We'll assess the socio-economic impact that will have and also the environmental impact. The presence of these large predators really changes the landscape for the benefit of nature. We're talking about maybe two packs of 10 wolves, maybe a dozen bears. These animals create the environment. It's not humans who create the environment, it's nature."

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But Lister will either need to buy more land or enlist the support of other local landowners to make his dream of creating the massive enclosure a reality. However he has faced opposition from farmers, walkers and legal experts over his new plan of bringing in wolves and bears. He could also face legal challenges over the plan.

But Paul Lister plans to forge ahead undeterred in bringing wolves and bears back to Scotland. Native wolves were driven to extinction in Scotland by the 18th century. Lister sums it all up by saying, "If you don't have an ideal to die for you have nothing to live for. My ideal is that I want to hear the wolf howl again in Scotland."

*This image is copyright of its original author

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