Rewilding in the United Kingdom

Understanding rewilding

The term rewilding encompasses multiple interpretations. It has been characterized as a malleable term, transformed and adapted according to the specific objectives of each project.¹ This lack of uniformity in its application is widely recognized as a cause of misinterpretations of rewilding in both practice and public policy.² Some authors propose that it would be more appropriate to consider it within the already established field of ecological restoration.³

During the 1980s in North America, the concept emerged under the initial name wilderness recovery,⁴ and since then it has gained global recognition.⁵ In its early stages, this practice focused on protecting and recovering native biodiversity through the creation of extensive interconnected networks of protected areas, designed primarily to safeguard keystone species and their trophic interactions.⁶

A first rewilding model identified three fundamental elements: large core protected areas, ecological connectivity, and keystone species.⁷ This model was subsequently modified by incorporating aspects such as climate resilience,⁸ compassion,⁹ and coexistence.¹⁰

Rewilding has become increasingly popular across the United Kingdom in recent years. Conservationist organizations and political groups have been pushing to reintroduce species. Scotland has been particularly active on this front. While translocations have benefited beavers, rewilding reveals a troubling pattern: it consistently prioritizes ecosystems while disregarding the interests of sentient beings. We will see this in more detail in the following sections.

Beavers: when translocation genuinely helps

Early conflicts between beavers and agricultural interests led to many lethal control licenses. But translocation programs changed this: 115 beavers were killed in 2020,¹¹ and 23 beavers were killed from April 2024 to March 2025;¹² the number of translocated beavers increased from 32¹³ to 79¹⁴ during the same period. While improvements are still needed, the deaths of dozens of animals each year have been prevented.

In October 2025, the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission published guidance.¹⁵ This document represents something genuinely pioneering—a governmental framework explicitly considering wild animal welfare in translocation planning. The guidance acknowledges: “Without proper consideration at all stages of the translocation process, there is a risk that animal welfare will be compromised.”¹⁶ It also recommends using the Five Domains model¹⁷ to assess welfare impacts.¹⁸

Yet we shouldn’t mistake this for evidence that rewilding prioritizes animals. The beaver strategy emphasizes ecosystem benefits and biodiversity enhancement. That individual beavers benefit by not dying appears more incidental—for example, because this is more effective in achieving environmental goals—than intentional. The primary goals remain ecological restoration and conflict management due to human interests. The benefits for beavers are a fortunate side effect, not the driving force.

The push for predators

While beavers have benefited, proposals to reintroduce large predators expose the fundamental conflict between conservationists and anti-speciesists. The lynx reintroduction campaign illustrates this tension clearly.

The Scottish Green Party has actively advocated for lynx reintroduction. Ariane Burgess (party spokesperson on Rural Affairs) proposed an amendment¹⁹ to the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill²⁰ to facilitate the species’ return.

Several conservationist organizations have formed the Lynx to Scotland partnership to advance this goal.²¹ In January 2026, a major consultation was launched across Highland and Moray, reaching approximately 89,000 households with information and planning 42 public meetings. The consultation suggests the region could eventually support up to 250 lynxes, with an initial release of perhaps 20 animals over several years.²²

Harm that these measures cause to animals

A lynx reintroduction would create suffering across multiple categories of animals. Yet rewilding proposals minimize or ignore these implications entirely.

Harms to prey animals

Thousands of deer and other prey animals would be hunted, pursued, injured, and killed. Each predation event involves substantial suffering. Being stalked creates fear and stress. Attacks cause pain and injury. Many prey animals don’t die quickly but suffer extended periods before death. Young animals separated from parents during hunts experience distress. Animals escaping with injuries may suffer from wounds that become infected or impair their ability to feed.

Moreover, deer populations would stop grazing out of fear of being preyed upon by the lynxes. Instead of grazing freely in open areas, they hide in places where lynxes cannot see them easily, and eat other, less plentiful and less nutritious plants. The biological dynamics that result from this are called the “ecology of fear”.²³

This is directly stated by organizations that support rewilding, such as Rewilding Britain:

“Top predators, such as wolves and lynx, are an important part of our ecosystems. They change the behaviour of prey species through the so-called ecology of fear. Through faeces, urine or scrapes, lynx leave scent marks that advertise their presence. This keeps animals on the move, which helps to prevent overgrazing and allows tree saplings and other vegetation to establish.

Lynx also prey directly on roe deer, which are overabundant in much of Britain. They will take on larger ungulates such as red deer or reindeer when other prey is scarce. Lynx also eat foxes, rabbits, hares, rodents and birds. Carcasses left by lynx provide food for other species and help fertilise the soil as they decay.”²⁴

Harms to the translocated animals

The proposals made so far have involved moving lynxes from continental Europe to Scotland.

The lynxes moved would experience significant stress throughout translocation. Translocated lynxes would face trauma from capture, stress during transport, and the challenge of adjustment to unfamiliar territory, establishing themselves in landscapes they’ve never encountered.

Expanding suffering in the wild

Rewilding projects would increase the total amount of suffering by expanding and intensifying landscapes where such suffering is endemic.

Population dynamics involve vast amounts of suffering than remains invisible in environmentalist analyses. Most wild animals die young, often painfully. Starvation, disease, exposure to the elements, predation, and injuries are common. The overwhelming majority of wild animals live short lives filled with hardship.²⁵ Competition creates chronic stress. Natural selection favors traits enhancing reproductive success, not traits minimizing suffering. Indeed, species that produce many offspring with low parental investment—experience particularly high mortality rates, with most individuals dying shortly after birth.

The divergence between environmentalism and anti-speciesism

Rewilding in the United Kingdom illuminates a fundamental tension: the divergence between environmentalism and anti-speciesism.

Environmentalism views the value of animals only (or primarily) as components of larger systems. According to this view, animals matter only insofar as they contribute to population viability, ecosystem function, or biodiversity preservation. A deer’s death by predation isn’t a welfare problem but restoration of natural dynamics. From this perspective, the suffering of prey is not seen as a problem, but rather simply as how healthy ecosystems function.

Antispeciesism, on the other hand, argues that the value of animals lies in their being sentient individuals with their own interests. Each animal can suffer or flourish regardless of what role that experience plays in broader ecosystem dynamics. Anti-speciesism argues that this is what matters. A deer’s experience of being hunted matters because that deer is sentient and capable of fear, pain, and distress—not because the predation event does or doesn’t serve ecosystem functions.

These divergent priorities lead to fundamentally different policy recommendations. As we can see, environmentalists advocate for rewilding, predator reintroductions, and expanding wild landscapes. Anti-speciesists raise concerns about the suffering these projects will create and question whether ecosystem restoration goals can justify causing or perpetuating animal suffering.

Conclusion

Rewilding in the United Kingdom has become a prominent conservation strategy. While the beaver translocation program has provided benefits by reducing lethal control, this shouldn’t obscure the broader pattern of environmentalist thinking dominating rewilding initiatives.

The suffering of animals being translocated, the suffering of prey animals that will be hunted and killed, and the expansion of landscapes where suffering is endemic have their importance minimized, are ignored, or even actively celebrated as the restoration of “natural processes” by rewilding advocates.

The Scottish Government’s recent translocation guidance²⁶ is positive, representing a pioneering governmental recognition that wild animal welfare matters. However, this framework remains limited in scope and hasn’t yet meaningfully constrained rewilding ambitions when the interests of sentient beings conflict with environmentalism.

Notes

1 Jørgensen, D. (2015) “Rethinking rewilding”, Geoforum, 65, pp. 482-488.

2 Pettorelli, N.; Barlow, J.; Stephens, P. A.; Durant, S. M.; Connor, B.; Schulte to Bühne, H.; Sandom, C. J.; Wentworth, J. & Toit, J. T. du (2018) “Making rewilding fit for policy”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 55, pp. 1114-1125 [accessed on 7 January 2026].

3 Hayward, M. W.; Scanlon, R. J.; Callen, A.; Howell, L. G.; Klop-Toker, K. L.; Di Blanco, Y.; Balkenhol, N.; Bugir, C. K.; Campbell, L.; Caravaggi, A.; Chalmers, A. C.; Clulow, J.; Clulow, S.; Cross, P.; Gould, J. A.; Griffin, A. S.; Heurich, M.; Howe, B. K.; Jachowski, D. S.; Jhala, Y. V. & Weise, F. J. (2019) “Reintroducing rewilding to restoration–Rejecting the search for novelty”, Biological Conservation, 233, pp. 255-259.

4 Carver, S.; Convery, I.; Hawkins, S.; Beyers, R.; Eagle, A.; Kun, Z.; Van Maanen, E.; Cao, Y.; Fisher, M.; Edwards, E. R.; Nelson, C.; Gann, G. D.; Shurter, S.; Aguilar, K.; Andrade, A.; Ripple, W. J.; Davis, J.; Sinclair, A.; Bekoff, M.; Noss, R.; Foreman, D.; Pettersson, H.; Root-Bernstein, M.; Svenning, J.-C.; Taylor, P.; Wynne-Jones, S.; Featherstone, A. W.; Fløjgaard, C.; Stanley-Price, M.; Navarro, L. M.; Aykroyd, T.; Parfitt, A. & Soulé, M. (2021) “Guiding principles for rewilding”, op. cit.

5 Johns, D. (2019) “History of rewilding: Ideas and practice”, in Pettorelli, N.; Durant, S. & Toit, J. du (eds.) Rewilding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 12-33.

6 Power, M. E.; Tilman, D.; Estes, J. A.; Menge, B. A.; Bond, W. J.; Mills, L. S.; Daily, G.; Castilla, J. C.; Lubchenco, J. & Paine, R. T. (1996) “Challenges in the quest for keystones: Identifying keystone species is difficult—but essential to understanding how loss of species will affect ecosystems”, Bioscience, 46, pp. 609-620.

7 Soulé, M. E. (1999) “An unflinching vision: Networks of people for networks of wildlands”, Wild Earth, 9 (4), pp. 38-46.

8 Carroll, C. & Noss, R. F. (2020) “Rewilding in the face of climate change”, Conservation Biology, 35, pp. 155-167 [accessed on 8 January 2026]

9 Bekoff, M. (2014) Rewilding our hearts: Building pathways of compassion and coexistence, Novato: New World Library. Kopnina, H.; Leadbeater, S. & Cryer, P. (2019) “Learning to rewild: Examining the failed case of the Dutch ‘New Wilderness’ Oostvaardersplassen”, International Journal of Wilderness, 25, pp. 72-89 [accessed on 7 January 2026]

10 Johns, D. (2019) “History of rewilding: Ideas and practice”, op. cit.

11 NatureScot (2021) “Beaver management report for 2020”, NatureScot, August [accessed on 7 January 2026].

12 NatureScot (2025) “Beaver management report: 01 April 2024 to 31 March 2025”, NatureScot [accessed on 7 January 2026].

13 Beaver Trust (2021) “Beaver management report for 2020”, NatureScot, op. cit.

14 NatureScot (2025) “Beaver management report: 01 April 2024 to 31 March 2025”, op. cit.

15 Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (2025) Wild animal translocations: Animal welfare risk assessment guidance, Edinburgh: The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission Secretariat [accessed on 7 January 2026].

16 Ibid., p. 4.

17 Mellor, D. J. (2017) “Operational details of the Five Domains Model and its key applications to the assessment and management of animal welfare”, Animals, 7 (8), 60 [accessed on 7 January 2026].

18 Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (2025) Wild animal translocations: Animal welfare risk assessment guidance, op. cit.

19 Scottish Parliament (2025) Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill [accessed on 7 January 2026].

20 Scottish Greens (2025) “Scotland should reintroduce wild Lynx: Greens call for reintroduction of Lynx”, Scottish Greens, 14 Nov 2025 [accessed on 7 January 2026].

21 SCOTLAND: The Big Picture (2020) “Lynx to Scotland”, SCOTLAND: The Big Picture [accessed on 7 January 2026].

22 Campsie, A. (2026) “90,000 homes across Highland and Moray asked views on return of lynx”, The Scotsman, 6th January 2026 [accessed on 7 January 2026].

23 Horta, O. (2010) “The ethics of the ecology of fear against the nonspeciesist paradigm: A shift in the aims of intervention in nature”, Between the Species, 13 (10) [accessed on 12 January 2026].

24 Rewilding Britain (2024) “Eurasian lynx: Lynx lynx”, Rewilding Britain [accessed on 7 January 2026].

25 For extensive discussion of suffering in wild populations, see: Ng, Y. K. (1995) “Towards welfare biology: Evolutionary economics of animal consciousness and suffering”, Biology and Philosophy, 10, pp. 255-285; Horta, O. (2010) “Debunking the idyllic view of natural processes: Population dynamics and suffering in the wild”, Télos, 17 (1), pp. 73-88 [accessed on 7 January 2026].

26 Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (2025) Wild animal translocations: Animal welfare risk assessment guidance, op. cit.

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