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Old April 21st 04, 09:06 AM
dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers
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I hope they'll be protected as well as studied.

Joy


Joy, big cats aren't native to the UK. If there are any in the wild (and I
think there most probably are a few), I have grave misgivings about them
remaining here. The theory is that they are cats that have escaped or have been
deliberately released from private collections when legislation was brought in
controlling who could have them and how/where they were kept.
Reasons for my misgivings - example, we now have wild mink in the UK. They are
escapees (unintentional & deliberate escape - "liberation") and descendents of
escapees from mink farms. The mink in question is the American Mink - it's not
native to the UK and it has no natural predators over here. It also breeds
extremely well over here. It is destroying our native and now very rare,
extremely endangered water voles. There's nothing better a mink likes than a
tasty water vole for lunch. The mink is killing off our own wild life rather
efficiently. For example - the stream at the end of my garden is a tributary of
the River Wensum. It had been mink free until quite recently. I used to see a
lot of water voles about. I haven't seen *any* this year. There's no sign of
them. Some time ago a downstream neighbour told me she'd seen a mink on the
banks of the stream where it goes by her place. Mink have been reported
elsewhere on the river system too. Also, the number of fish in the stream has
noticeably declined when the water is *good* and it's not fished to any extent.

The other problem is that in relative terms, the UK is a small landmass, highly
urbanised in many areas so there simply isn't the space for big cats to be
about in any quantity without possible serious consequences for people. In this
case, it isn't the people encroaching on to land previously the natural habitat
of the big cats, it's more the other way around.

I have very grave doubts about big cats remaining wild in the UK.

Cheers, helen s



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