Highland Wildlife Park highland wildlife park

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kiang said:
Quite right Jelle, The guys name is Paul Lister, he is a wealthy landowner, owner of Alladale wilderness reserve just north of Inverness.
He has released wild boar and a pair of Europen elk onto his estate (and you thought hwp had the only elk in Britain).
He is also wanting to bring in bears, wolves and Europen bison.
http://www.alladale.com/assets/BBC_wildlife_0108.pdf
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This guy has 23,000 acres (!!) at his disposal... Its a very interesting proposal- they are talking here about a fifty mile long fence to contain all the free roaming predators(Bears/wolf/lynx) and the prey species too.

Anyone know if this very extensive fence has been constructed yet and what other news there is on these plans generally? They talked about the possibility of having European Bison- I wouldn't have thought this mixed forest browser/grazer from the dense woodlands of Central Europe would be very well suited to the harsher conditions of moorland and relict pine forest. I'm not sure about Wild Boar either, another essentially mixed woodland species. Most of the other species sound perfectly feasible though, especially if they can improve the amount of riverine woodland available for e.g. the European moose(elk).
 
For those interested, Paul Lister's plan to "re-wild" his Alladale reserve will be the subject of a Natural World documentary on BBC2. The programme is called "Moose in the Glen", and will air on Wednesday 16th April at 8pm on BBC2.

Programme details from the BBC Natural World site: BBC Natural World

If you go to the Alladale website, you can watch a trailer for the programme: Alladale Wilderness Lodge and Reserve
 
Alladale experiment

Chris79 said:
For those interested, Paul Lister's plan to "re-wild" his Alladale reserve will be the subject of a Natural World documentary on BBC2. The programme is called "Moose in the Glen", and will air on Wednesday 16th April at 8pm on BBC2.
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The programme raised some interesting issues. Not least of which was if they run a fifty mile perimeter fence around the estate, he may have to apply for a Zoo License for the animals that are reintroduced inside. There also seems controversy about the fence denying walkers access to the land, yet without a secure fence to contain the carnivores there would be uproar about safety issues. It seems at present its a 'no win' situation.

I hope all this can be resolved as it seems to be a very interesting and worthwhile experiment. So far it appears they have just the Wild Boar and the two Elk, both species being contained in large enclosures.
 
Pertinax said:
The programme raised some interesting issues. Not least of which was if they run a fifty mile perimeter fence around the estate, he may have to apply for a Zoo License for the animals that are reintroduced inside. There also seems controversy about the fence denying walkers access to the land, yet without a secure fence to contain the carnivores there would be uproar about safety issues. It seems at present its a 'no win' situation.

I hope all this can be resolved as it seems to be a very interesting and worthwhile experiment. So far it appears they have just the Wild Boar and the two Elk, both species being contained in large enclosures.
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Indeed there are some interesting issues! Another one is the problem of land area. He needs to double the size of his reserve to 50,000 acres just to support a single wolf pack. Then there is the problem of how the wolf population sustains itself.
 
I'm quite sure he'll get enough land. The licensing issue is a tricky one. There's also no reason why he shouldn't build solid turnstiles to allow ramblers into the estate. If there are warning signs up then its up to them. Only he won't as nobody will pay to see his animals, especially if their photographs are interrupted by a herd of multi-coloured cagouls...
 
I can almost hear nice Mr Attenborough's whispered commentary,
". . . and now the members of the wolf pack slowly spread out to surround the herd of multi-coloured cagouls. Each wolf studying its prey trying to pick out a sick or weakened individual . . ." :D

Alan
 
Very interesting programme - incidentally he is the MFI furniture heir and it was working in one of their shops where my dearly beloved and I first got together many years ago!

The right to roam versus the need for a perimeter fence does seem insoluble. Even Madonna couldn't stop the ramblers...(I'm definitely with the ramblers on that one).

As a commercial venture I would have my doubts too. A single wolf pack in 50000 acres might be rather hard to locate even in a land rover with a guide, so many visitors might be disappointed.

Even so I think it is a great experiment and I would love it to succeed.
 
Pygathrix said:
As a commercial venture I would have my doubts too. A single wolf pack in 50000 acres might be rather hard to locate even in a land rover with a guide, so many visitors might be disappointed.

Even so I think it is a great experiment and I would love it to succeed.
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Someone asked what the wolves would eat... I guess the major diet would be Red Deer.

As far as seeing the wolves- if they had truly reverted to a wild existence I expect much of the day would be spent lying up in a 'rest area' somewhere well away from the access roads, so it would be imposible for visitors to see them as they can in (say) a conventional Safari park. I don't know if the intention is for people to be able to drive through this enormous estate in order to view the animals- if so they could expect to see Red Deer, and maybe boar if they were lucky but that's about it. I'm not sure quite how the 'visitor' aspect would be envisaged as the chance of seeing the more spectacular animals would be virtually nil...:confused:
 
wouldent panda be more suited to the hwp because of the area in china they come from is in very hilly nd not so warm climates

also with the pandas coming to edinburgh and goin into the lion paddock and the lions going into the tiger enclosure wouldent it make a wee bit more sense to put the pandas in the tiger cage

just a thought
 
jackyboy said:
wouldent panda be more suited to the hwp because of the area in china they come from is in very hilly nd not so warm climates

also with the pandas coming to edinburgh and goin into the lion paddock and the lions going into the tiger enclosure wouldent it make a wee bit more sense to put the pandas in the tiger cage

just a thought
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If they housed the panda's at HWP, they would not attract more visitors, alot of people who may go to edinburgh for the weekend, may decide then to go the zoo just because there are ginat panda's there. I doubt they would travel out to HWP to see them.

I don't know what the tiger or Lion exhibits look like, but I gather the the lion enclosure is either more suitable or easier to make suitable for the panda's and that would be the reason behind the choice of enclosure.
 
Whilst it would make more sense habitat wise to send them to Highland, they were always to going to go to Edinburgh werent they because well it is there that the more money is to be made and more visistors are going to visit the zoo.
 
Latest births at the park
4 - Przewalski's wild horse
4 - Turkmenian markhor
1 - Afghan urial

Another Mishmi takin has been born the second in as many months bringing the herd up to 10 in number.
 
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