Totally wild! Bears return to woods 1,000 years on

This is going to go horribly wrong. From yesterday’s Metro:

‘We are literally making history,’ said Nigel Simpson, from the project. ‘We will transport people back in time to when the woodland was inhabited by bears and take people through time showing the effects of woodland loss on our native animals. Bear Wood is about conservation of woodland.’

Bristol Zoological Society, which runs the project, has already received donations from benefactors and sponsors. Christoph Schwitzer, director of conservation at the society, said: ‘We are hoping that people will be really excited and want to support us. For the first time in generations people will be able to see brown bears in their natural habitat.’

1. Seven and a half acres? The average bear or wolf needs a much larger territory than that, cramming them in any tighter means they will have to be fed i.e. domesticated. So it’s a glorified zoo rather than natural habitat.

2. Bears are large, strong and resourceful animals (and wolves are no slouches). A fence strong enough to hold in bears is going to be pretty much like a wall, unless they electrify it – and an electric current strong enough to dissuade a bear from having a go is going to be pretty lethal to anything else that touches it (including wolves). Which sorts out the feeding problem, I suppose. The bears and wolves can just traipse along the fence and scavenge what’s there. And people can stand on platforms watching them.

3. Heck knows what Health & Safety will have to say, or what their insurance premiums will be. Once one bear has escaped (and sooner or later, it will), that will be pretty much game over.