Opinion

HEADING FOR THE HILLS

Lynx

When it comes home again for good (it may still be ab­sent but re­mains deep in the DNA of this wild, won­der­ful coun­try) I will re­joice.

When, not if.

The lynx, such a scarce, stun­ning crea­ture, is em­blem­atic of human folly. Hunted and so de­pleted by the loss of both key prey (rab­bits) and habi­tat, to the point of near ex­tinc­tion in Iberia, it is re­cov­er­ing slowly but stead­fastly with the help of some en­light­ened and dogged souls. May the day come soon when we have it back in Cat­alo­nia, in the wild.

Re­mem­ber two years ago when one tagged spec­i­men last seen in Por­tu­gal turned up just south of Barcelona? I look at the wilder­ness around me and hope. And then, 12 months back, the first cub was born in Cat­alo­nia for more than a cen­tury, at the Fauna MónNatura re­cov­ery cen­tre at the Aigües­tortes i Es­tany de Sant Maurici Na­tional Park.

Do not be scared. Be aware. Be alive to what is pos­si­ble.

Our species is awak­en­ing, al­beit painstak­ingly slowly, from its stu­por. It is pro­foundly the time to fire our senses nat­u­rally, and noth­ing pos­i­tively matches the power of the im­mea­sur­able out­doors. It is so much about men­tal health, re­spect, knowl­edge, learn­ing to tread softly, feel­ing the heart pump­ing. We so des­per­ately need to re-wild, to step off the beaten track, a mes­sage bet­ter un­der­stood every day. But we also must em­brace and cel­e­brate trophic di­ver­sity, the widest breadth of species, for there to be as nat­ural a bal­ance as pos­si­ble.

With dy­namic in­ter­ac­tions, like that going on about my an­kles, in minia­ture and so sig­nif­i­cantly among the in­sects feed­ing off one an­other in the del­i­cately bal­anced cir­cle of life, free of pes­ti­cides and human ham­mer­ing, so too we need the megafauna back.

Such a rich­ness of species is only pos­si­ble when the food web, the di­ver­sity, is there to sus­tain. Well, if here in The Pri­o­rat is any­thing to go by, the web is now in need of nat­ural check.

Rab­bits are pro­lif­er­at­ing, boar are breed­ing more than once a year and are every­where, and the roe deer are well and truly back. Our night cam­era bears wit­ness.

When will the time be right, I won­der, to rein­tro­duce a nat­ural preda­tor here? I am talk­ing lynx, not wolf or bear (yet).

Caveat. The peo­ple of the land need to be part­ners in any dis­cus­sion, progress and change. They have in­valu­able root wis­doms and it is their lives and com­mu­ni­ties that need care just as much, in bal­ance. There have not been, for the record, at­tacks on hu­mans by lynx. They are soli­tary and ter­ri­to­r­ial and, hence, never, nu­mer­ous.

I make no apol­ogy for being im­pa­tient. Just writ­ing this takes me away from human pre-oc­cu­pa­tions that smother the seeds of a ful­fill­ing, sen­sory life.

I need to re-wild my­self on a daily basis.

Life, more so now with the ac­cel­er­at­ing de­val­u­a­tion of truth, comes like shop­ping whizzing across the bar­code reader at the till. It’s a stress­ful, il­lit­er­ate blur. I give up, al­ways, try­ing and fail­ing to process, so lump every­thing into a re­cy­clable bag and flee back to the hills; to the rhi­nosauros bee­tle, the tor­toise (tes­tudo her­manni), the chicory flower, but­ter­fly, bee-eater and vole; the bird­song, leaf, bark and bus­tle, from the minis­cule to the megafauna, the great­est colour palette of all.

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