A wealthy landowner is pushing ahead with his plans for a wolf reserve in the Highlands - despite protests.
Paul Lister, a trustee of the European Nature Trust, said he believes the initiative could create 50 jobs in a remote area in the north of Scotland.
Mr Lister, who owns Alladale Wilderness Reserve in Sutherland, believes it could become the equivalent of Yellowstone Park in the USA and help attract visitors to the region.
On the estate’s website Mr Lister said: “We are looking at creating a site of 50,000 acres - which is less than 1% of the Highlands - where we could release a pack of Swedish wolves into a controlled environment. It would be a world class visitor attraction and I believe we can make this idea happen: a kind of Yellowstone of Scotland.”
He added: “It can bring significant benefits to the area in terms of biodiversity, tourism, job creation and education."
READ MORE: Polar bear cub makes first splash in outdoor pool
Recently Rural Economy Minister Fergus Ewing told farmers that wolves, bears and lynx will be reintroduced to Scotland “over my dead body.”
Mr Ewing told the NFU Scotland (NFUS) AGM in February that the reintroduction of any species that makes farming more difficult “won’t happen in Scotland as long as I’m around”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel