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A "serious debate"
has to be held on the potential impact of reintroducing wild wolves to
the Scottish Highlands, a UK conservation charity has said.
Richard
Morley, of the Wolves and Humans Foundation, has forecast that public
support for the move will grow over the next 15 years.
There is already official backing for the reintroduction of wild beavers in Scotland by next year.
Mr Morley said previous talks on wolves had been too "simple or romantic".
The
charity - formerly The Wolf Society of Great Britain - is holding an
informal, paid-for event in April at Alladale Wilderness Reserve, north
of Inverness, which has wild boar and European elk.
Reserve owner Paul Lister is keen to see the mammals and other animals once native to Scotland reintroduced.
While
not campaigning for the return of wolves, Mr Morley said he wanted to
make sure the foundation was included in any future debates on the
issue.
He said: "A time will come when media reports will
generate a public demand for the government to look seriously at the
reintroduction of wolves.
"We want to be at the table when that happens."
Mr
Morley added: "What I have tried to organise before and still want to
do is hold a major conference, maybe in Inverness, bringing together
scientists and communities."
He said farmers and crofters have
serious concerns about the effect wolves could have on their livestock,
particularly sheep, that have to be acknowledged.
However, Mr Morley said there was also potential for attracting tourists.
Yellowstone National Park in the US has generated extra income from its wolves, he said.
"There
have been problems, such as what to do when they stray outside the
boundaries, but a key issue is the $3m a year it gets from people
coming to see the wolves," he said.
Last year, a research team
from the UK and Norway published a study that found reintroducing wild
wolves to the Scottish Highlands would help the local ecosystem.
Writing
in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers - which included
experts from the Imperial College London - said this would aid the
re-establishment of plants and birds currently hampered by the deer
population.
There are conflicting accounts of where the last wild wolf in Scotland was killed.
One of the claims is that it was dispatched near Findhorn, Moray, in 1743 amid an outcry that it had killed two children.
Whatever
the truth, Professor James Hunter, director of the UHI Centre for
History in Inverness, said wolves were doomed to extinction by dramatic
changes within society, politics and to land management.
By
the end of the 17th Century and start of the 18th, the long-standing
clan system, its chiefs and way of life in the Highlands were under
pressure.
Prof Hunter said: "The Scottish Government was
looking to extend its influence very heavily into the Highlands and to
subvert Highland chief and draw them more into southern society.
"It was a time of huge change in terms of the natural environment and landscape.
"There was growing exploitation of Highland woodlands for charcoal for iron smelting.
"With
that kind of exploitation of woodlands, more commercial style of
farming and a big expansion of cattle droving out of the Highlands the
wolf was doomed to extinction."
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