Learning Day: In the Footsteps of Lynx

Across mainland Europe, the Eurasian lynx is staging a comeback. Freed from the pressures of unsustainable hunting and benefiting from a softening of public attitudes, this enigmatic feline has been successfully reintroduced into several countries and is now growing in numbers and expanding its range.

This special Learning Day will explore what a reintroduction in Scotland might look like, what challenges we might face and how we might manage coexistence.

We will also explore what it would be like to walk in the lynx’s footsteps once again, as we sharpen our senses to forgotten cues and learn how to identify and track pine martens, wildcats, badgers and foxes, comparing their behaviours and signs to those of a lynx. We will learn to think both like a lynx and like the lynx’s prey, experiencing the landscape through their eyes, ears and noses, as we seek to re-imagine how our woodlands would feel in the presence of this apex predator.

The Learning Day will cover:
– An introduction to lynx ecology and behaviour
– What a Scottish reintroduction might look like
– How a lynx reintroduction could benefit Scotland
– Remaining barriers to a lynx reintroduction and how they might be overcome
– Thinking like a lynx – tracking skills and the art of silent stalking
– Living with lynx – a fresh look at life (and death) through the eyes of a roe deer