Rewilding Britain: A focus on the reintroduction of mammals 

I live in small country of Slovakia... we have boar, lynx, brown bear, small but slowly growing wolf population, wisent and even beaver. If my small country can support all this wildlife, UK can too.

Annoying music competing with the speaker's commentary. it was hard to follow what was being said despite full volume on my laptop. Please reload either without the music or by reducing its volume against the commentary.

Its hard to listen to the content over the Music sorry : (

The funny thing is the British criticises other countries about there deforestation and saving there animals but look at the UK there's hardly anything left here except empty fields and deer

Did you know that bears also used to live there? Moose have been reintroduced to Scotland in the 1970's.

Please take the piano sound track off or reduce it. It makes it hard to hear what’s being said.

Pity I can't hear what people are saying over the music.

Thank you for posting this! I love seeing these changes attempted! And it's great seeing animals in their natural state instead of just in cages. These are amazing creatures! We can learn so much from them. I would love to see the forests return. I hope there is funding to continue this and sustain it.

Aslo, I see a lot of comments about the background music being too loud for the narrator's voice, but I heard her just fine.

One other reason for the dissapearance of UK's vast forests was the creation of ships. Imagine the amount of wood needed to creat a fleet of even 50 ships much less 100. Cheers, Dick from Vancouver.

im sick off all the talk and ideas but no action!

Are wolves and lynxes a threat for livestock? Well, the simple, yet painfull answer, is that animal husbandry must get more sustainable, I hear people having from 500 to 5.000 sheep, goat and cow, and that's just one person, how is an island going to sustain so many animals? It's not even easy to say, but we need to reduce the number of animals that people are allowed to raise if we REALLY want to rewild Great Britain. Agriculture is also another thing that must be reduced. Agriculture must be permited only around towns and cities, just like they did during the middle ages. Beyond the cultivated land there should be something like a "communal woodland", a wild area that's open to be used but with restriction, and things such as mining, BANNED in some delicate areas. Bringing long ago extincted animals to the land is not easy, and sadly is not the end of the struggle. We, people, have a huge role that we'll need to play if we really want to live alongside nature; we must stop being so uterly consumerist, and become conservationalist, why do we eat so much meat? Why do we eat so much food overall?? In the old days, people used to eat no more than twice a day, with little to almost no meat at all. It's firt us the ones who have to improve, then nature will do it by itself.

We should also reintroduce them to the Netherlands. The beaver became extinct in the 12th century, the lynx in the Middle ages, and the wolf in 1898.

I think of the UK really got their rewilding together, they could reintroduce/introduce many animals that became extricated from their. India and Sri Lanka have HUGE population densities and they have been able to reverse the damage done to the ecosystem and restore them to a great extent. They have done so so well in fact that they are even on the edge of Pleistocene rewilding (it is a more advanced form of rewilding, but has the same basic concept), especially in India. These two countries (collectively) have many of the most high order predators on earth, including tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards, Asiatic black bears, sloth bears, brown bears, and many other predators. Yes, rewilding and conservation may not be done smoothly and perfectly, but if we as a society are persistent, we can restore our environment. If India and Sri Lanka can do it, I don't see why Great Britain cannot do it too.

Its Nice to see nature at your countryside and home yard...

Really informative video Sian :D well done! Let's make Britain's wildlife great again...bring them all back I say! :D xx

Great video, added to our Rewilding playlist.

Great video, thanks for posting.

We constantly hear people in the UK criticise other countries for hunting/poaching animals but we forget that the reason we don't have those sorts of animals is because we wiped them off the face of this country and in other countries. Pot calling the kettle black!

I say bring all our lost animals back. I'm for it 100%

Too much music.

I am so in love with this idea! Let's start rewilding, end game hunting and deer stalking, and end the animal agriculture, which is nothing more than a massive waste of tax payers money, cruel and incredibly destructive for our environment.

I love the music, but I could much better understand the speaker if the music were not so loud. When I cannot hear the speaker, I tend to lose interest and move on. Thank you.

The music is so loud that I can't hear the people speaking. Otherwise great content.I see there are 10 other comments from people that they also can't hear the speakers yet nothing has been fixed. sorry I can't finish watching as I can't hear what is being said!

can you give me of a place wher i can work to do this as a job? GREAT VIDEO AND THANK YOU

I live between Dallas and Fort Worth. We have Bobcats, feral hogs. up to 300 lbs, beaver, armadillos coyotes and several poisonous snakes in our local park. The bobcats are accustomed to people, dogs and bicycles. My dog scared one up not long ago startling me as well. I have video of a momma with three Cubs.

What a pity that the dialogue is drowned out by he music. Irritating enough for me not to be able to finish watching.

This was great, very informative but made me laugh when you referred to the Lynx as an underdog. Undercat is more accurate lol

11:59 Oh you lovely Lynx 😍

Hi Sian, I'm doing a project on Rewilding and the interaction of the biosphere and geosphere, could I get a copy of your wright?

i love beavers natures dam builders .

Hurry up, bring this on! The deer population is out of control with no predators, ask any dog walker!

For those saying UK is too heavily populated, that's absolutely not a valid excuse. Rwanda a poor African country, has twice the population density of the UK, and our population is growing even faster. But we have Lions, Gorillas, Hippos, Elephants and even Rhino's. It's just a matter of priority, as a country we value nature, the UK doesn't. Even European countries with higher population density like the Netherlands, Germany or Slovakia all have Wolves and Bears, the UK has absolutely no excuse. But the UK also deserves credit for the fantastic work individuals and the UK government are doing helping nature in other countries, especially in East and Southern Africa.

We need predators, even a lynx would the do a world of good.

You could have Farmers having training Irish Wolfhounds or Scottish Deerhounds as well as their sheepdog, they could use them to fend off any nosey wolves

7:41 how gourgeous

Technically, moose were reintroduced to Alledale wildlife park in 2008.

You didn't mention the massive use of timber to make your Naval sailing ships.

With that picture of beaver hunting, what picture should I look up so I can put that on my blog?

From my reading and watching video's it really does seem to me that the best way for Apex Predators and farmers to survive and coexist is through the use of Live Stock Guardian dogs (LGD) The way that works is a small pack of LGD's live full time with the livestock and protect it. I guess they provide enough protection that the predator goes and looks for an easier meal. Also until you get around to reintroducing that top predator humans need to start harvesting more of the over populated game.

Great idea. Unfortunately population density in the UK makes re introducing large animal species an impossiblity

Wolves and lynxes would be the easiest mammal predators to be reintroduced and they also used to live in Ireland. Did you know that bears used to live in Britain?

Music drowning out the commentary.

A lot of the resistance to reintroduction of predators seems to be from farmers. If we all cut out meat eating dramatically, we'd free up vast areas of land to be rewilded, this could be a huge draw for tourists. I'd be more proud of a wilder Britain, more in line with it's pre humen flora and forna than the over farmed mess we currently see.

/How manny bears have been released in the UK. How many more does science sah are needed.

The red deer is not found in nor native to Yellowstone. It was the native American elk population which was reduced by the Yellowstone wolves.

We tell the world to give big cats space - enormous big cats Lions , Tigers, Leopards and there is probably few hundreds maybe a few thousand of them in the wild. One Lynx escapes in Britain which is just twice the size of a normal pussy cat, and a nationwide panic manhunt ensues with the animal being gunned down while sleeping in a caravan park in Wales. This story was the saddest thing I have ever read in a newspaper.

beaver not the problem its the farmers

Sheep have a lot to answer for

I'm from Canada and I've come face-to-face with a wolf when I was a child and the wolf ran away.

bring back wolves, linyxs and baers. to uk

I am intensely interested in this subject, however the background music in this video is so loud that it makes it impossible to follow the commentary, very disappointing. Future documentary film makers please consider this. The annoying music adds nothing but frustration.

Yes all this is fine & dandy,but @ 0 AD,the population was maybe 2 to 3million people, now it's close to 70million. I live on the edge of the New Forest,when I was young 50+ yrs back there was plenty of wildlife there,but now numbers are diminishing because of millions of grockles arriving each year. Places that only 5yrs ago I photographed all sorts of wildlife,now due to ever more grockles(people)visiting,wildlife is diminishing rapidly. To many dogs brought there scare off so much wildlife.

Unfortunately I can't ever see the wolf being reintroduced to Britain even though they belong here, the stigma surrounding them will stop any attempt. The Lynx has an outside chance of being allowed back but I don't hold out much hope, and the beaver is already here and doing what nature intended it to do.

the government seems determined to get rid of any green bits every field near me is a "development opportunity"

I could barely make out what you were saying over the loud music.

Prince Charles keeps promoting wildlife but does not seem commit any of his thousands of acres to rewild Britain what a great position to be in. He is in a great position to give something back to his grand children and everyone else's grand children. He is in the position to bring back many endangered species back from the brink of extinction!

There are 2 more keystone species that should be reintroduced and they are the wild boar and the grey whale.

Music TOO LOUD!n Music distracting and not necessary.

There were never wison nor horses in the brittish isles, only aurochs. For the rest, I think it was all about deers and surelly warthogs.

Please turn that music off! It's drowning out the narrator!!

Humans barely regard other creatures unless directly serving us as a cuddly pet or stomach filler.. environmental issues are barely an issue for most people. When our environment truly begins to collapse we better hope travel to other planets is possible because reversing the collapse will most likely be beyond our procrastinating mentality. Sad to think air & water are so full of pollutents *A small percentage of our people are making a difference & are dedicated long-term* The number of unemployed, able-bodied people who could be mobilised to work environmental tasks could turn a lot of damage around..even 1x day a week.

1) There are six species of deer in UK . Where I live in Cumbria there a lot of roe and red deer 2) Serious problems in this area are raw sewage pumped into rivers killing fish and insects with the resulting destruction of otter , sand martin , dipper and kingfisher populations . At the same time water rates are charged and squandered The second problem is biologically dead bracken blanking the fells . Much of this land is owned by the National Trust ( the idle lot ) . Before re-wilding , sort out these and oiher problems

Would be good to see wolves and lynxes back, but it's unlikely with the farmers having been rubbed up the wrong way by animal rights extremism pandered to by the Labour Party and the BBC.

bring bears and moose and wolf lynx pleasse

mosaic was the natural condition, not forest. george monbiot says the sheep farmers must be kicked out, they are paid subsidy to damage the land. deer and grouse farms are places to practice shooting. isabella tree pointed out scrub is a key, the NFU is a villain, they went against crop rotation after WW2 to continue subsidies and continued to farm intensively.

The irritating background music makes it very difficult for me to hear much of this!

Since it's controversial, why not just vote for the reintroduction. Anyway, the reintroduction starts this year. If you want to know that moose have been reintroduced in the 70's, go to the Wikipedia and go to the subspecies list.

Cool more for me to shoot...

BEFORE reintroduction just rule that farmers will be allowed to remove predators in defence of livestock. Radical animalism is tremendously detrimental to the environment.

Just imagine - some lovely large carnivores on the outskirts of our cities - that would make knife crime & shootings seem like a good thing?

Nice video. Pity that the map of Britain includes the Republic of Ireland. Do British people not realize we gained our Independence from then? Honest question.

Use bear spray

I'm sorry to be a doomer but I passionately care about British wildlife and rewilding Britain, and have little hope that it will happen. Simply because those in power and average liberal voters are too in denial to address the things that will stop it from becoming a reality rather than something we just continue to talk about. We can't rewild unless we have the suitable conditions to rewild. And we can't have the suitable conditions without reducing the causes of over-population. We do need great minds thinking of suitable ideas though.

Silly pointless music spoiling what should be an enjoyable mini documentary.... :-(

0:43 the island on the left isn't britain thats Ireland

You sit on the fence at times. While I can see that otters may have impacts on migrating fish, you can surely energise your presentation of otters with the Joie de Vivre that infuses your coverage of wolves and lynx. £9m on deer management by FC Scotland. Cheques for photos and guard dogs sound good. Do you think wolves could.survive in less than 10,000 km2? Lynx.... mesopredator release effect The choice is ours Nice essay

Can't listen anymore!! The music destroys the narration!! So message is lost!!!!!!

I know that it is much easier to make the news by reintroducing large, furry mammals, but does anyone actually care that we are losing beautiful (and formerly common) species such as curlew, lapwing, spotted fly catcher, fritillary butterflies and fish such as the allis shad and vendace? This is as a direct result of habitat loss due to unsustainable farming, overdevelopment and pollution. I see no sign of this habitat shrinkage and damage slowing down. So, my question is, how are we going to manage the shrinking available land for the reintroduction of large mammals that have been absent for hundreds of years?

The loud music needlessly drowns out the narrative. Not a good video.

Actually in reality all these lands belong to other animals. Human is a tropical animal and should not be there to begin with.

More people die in car accidents

You must be mad, wolves, really wolves... & lynx, if you are having troubles with foxes, just wait until you have lynx back in the area!

use grading dogs like kangal dog Kafka dogs alabi dog akbash dogs and boukuvina dogs from Romania.

You should rewild Britain 👍👍👍🐺🐗🦅🐻🦇🐴🦎🦌🌲🌲🌲🐈

I dislike this because I am partially deaf. The background music is to loud and you speak to fast.

Stop blaming agriculture for this

The 2nd mammal to be reintroduced is the European bison.

5000 Years ago most big animals repsonsable for shaping Britains landscapes were wiped out already. A forestet Britain is only the symptome of the absence of herbivores too big to be effectivly regulated by carnivores like Elephants Rhinos and so forth. I do support the idea of rewilding but please get your facts straight. It wasn t climatechange that wiped out the pleistocene megafauna it is the legacy of our ancestors and they are to be blamed. During the last interglacial period Britains climate was very much like it is now but with vast open temperate tree and shrub svannahs full of Elephants Lions Rhinos Horses Bison and even Hippos.

Agenda 21

Isn't it noble that Londoners want to release large dangerous carnivores into somebody else's backyard.

This would bve much easier to listen to if the silly plinky plonky "music" was got rid of. This is not a "hollywood" blockbuster and does not need a musical score to accompany it. Thumbs down.