Germany's northern Harz mountains national park was the location of a project in 2000 designed to re-introduce lynx into an area where the last of its kind had been killed by hunters in 1818 or so.
The web site of the lynx project (in German) details the history of the undertaking since its inception, has lots of photos of Germany's biggest wild cat and shows you how to get there. There is also an enclosed lynx habitat to bring the shy animal closer to people.
Between 2000 and 2007 a total of nine males and fifteen females were released into the wild. This table also has a +2* entry which tells the readers that two lynx escaped from the nearby municipal game park of Wernigerode to find a new home in the national park.
The population in the somewhat isolated Harz (the isolated red dot in the middle of northern Germany on this map) is doing well.
Which upsets regional hunters.
Complaints by farmers would seem logical, but by hunters?
Hunting in Germany is very different than in the U.S. or even in neighboring France. You cannot just go buy a permit and hunt on public lands. German public as well as private lands are leased to deep pocket hunters, mostly rich individuals or companies whose CEO is a hunting aficionado and will arrange tax deductible hunting parties for clients, etc.
The lease system comes straight from the old feudal system, most glaringly shown by the fact that farmers, the largest private owners in our hills, cannot simply hunt on their own land.
Why would wealthy hunters complain about their beloved nature?
After all, the web sites and the PR material of every single hunting association proudly states that they love nature and that hunting plays a vital role in ensuring balanced wild life populations. Isn't the Eurasian lynx part of a balance knocked out of whack by the ancestors of today's hunters?
Money.
The regional association of hunters went as far as
claiming that lynx in the Harz cost hunters some 500 000 Euros in lost
game revenue since 2000.
We don't have lease figures and cannot be certain about the area leased by the complaining hunters, but from figures from our very own hills, we can safely say that the 500 grand may represent at least half of the money they paid for the leases.
Since hunters complain about a lynx over population, does anyone know how much they stand to earn from lynx pelts?
Farmers get nothing of the money the municipalities take in from hunting rights leases. And hunters don't go around giving farmers game either.
Disclaimer: This post is biased towards cats. Just saying, in case you have not seen or Twitter profile picture.
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