Wild Beasts Trust
The Wild Beasts Trust is an endangered species enthusiast movement who, in September 2006, declared their intentions to reintroduce numerous nationally extinct species back into the wild in the United Kingdom.
In part their actions were motivated by a desire to return the British countryside to its original setting. Although woodlands were returning, The Wild Beasts Trust saw the picture as half complete without their original inhabitants. The group wanted increased hunting and food potentials for the countryside. Spokesperson for The Wild Beasts Trust Peter Clarke, a landowner and former Conservative Party candidate, wrote that, "Our candidate species for rebuilding the habitat range from the grey whale to the dormouse, carnivore to herbivore. We include the wolf, the lynx, the bear, the wolverine, the beaver, the elk, the boar, the walrus, the bison, the mouflon, the lemming and one non-mammal - the sturgeon."
The initial areas for reintroduction appeared to be in Northumberland forests, and the borders region of Scotland. When it was revealed that six lynx and several wolves were being secretly held for reintroduction, the Northumbrian, and Lothian and Borders police became involved in the matter. They publicly warned the group that they would be committing a serious offence, also stating that a specific exotic animal license was required to own any big cat. Richard Dodd, of the Countryside Alliance, said the plan had been a "ludicrous idea... Wolves are dangerous animals. What happens if they start killing children or farmer's livestock?" UK Government department DEFRA further denounced the plans, claiming the reintroductions could be "devastating" to the countryside. Spokesperson Peter Clarke's public defence was that, "Everyone has Little Red Riding Hood in their mental furniture, but that is far from the reality."
Read more about Wild Beasts Trust: Other Attempts At Reintroduction in The UK
Famous quotes containing the words wild, beasts and/or trust:
“Where no great fish venture
nor small fish glitter and dart,
only the anemones and flower
of the wild sea-thyme
cover the silent walls
of an old sea-city at rest.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Then, that no region of the universe
Should remain void of life, the floor of heaven
Was peopled with the stars and godlike forms,
The seas became the abode of glittering fish.
Earth took the beasts and mobile air the birds.
A holier animal was wanting.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“A noble person confers no such gift as his whole confidence: none so exalts the giver and the receiver; it produces the truest gratitude. Perhaps it is only essential to friendship that some vital trust should have been reposed by the one in the other. I feel addressed and probed even to the remotest parts of my being when one nobly shows, even in trivial things, an implicit faith in me.... A threat or a curse may be forgotten, but this mild trust translates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)