Two more lynx captured in Scottish Highland woods

Two more lynx abandoned in the Cairngorms have been safely captured, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland said on Friday.

Two of the illegally released animals were captured on Thursday after being sighted in the Dell of Killiehuntly near Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands.

The RZSS said: “Two additional lynx who appear to have been deliberately abandoned in the Cairngorms have been safely captured this evening.

“The medium-sized cats were spotted on camera traps overnight on 9-10 January.

“Staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland then baited a series of humane traps in the area to entice them with and have been working with Police Scotland and rangers from the Cairngorms National Park Authority to monitor the area throughout the day.”

They will be brought to the nearby Highland Wildlife Park to be checked over by RZSS veterinarians before being moved to quarantine facilities in Edinburgh zoo. It is thought all four are from the same family group.

Dr Helen Senn, RZSS’s head of conservation, said: “I’m sure that everyone in the community will be happy and relieved to know that the second pair of lynx have been safely captured. Early reports are that they appear to be in good health, which is the most important thing.

“It’s been a rollercoaster 48 hours, with people working throughout the day and night, in some extremely challenging conditions, but I’ve been so impressed by the efforts of our own staff as well as partners, and members of the local community, to ensure that the outcome is a positive one.

“Although we don’t think that there are any more lynx out there, we will continue to monitor the release site under the direction of Police Scotland,” she added.

It is understood the pair were spotted on camera traps set by staff from the RZSS in woods near Kingussie, in the Cairngorms, close to where the first two were trapped.

Police Scotland launched a criminal investigation into the release. A statement said: “Inquiries are continuing to establish the full circumstances of how they came to be in the area, as well as the additional pair of lynx which were captured on Thursday 9 January 2025.

“We would continue to ask people not to travel to the area, particularly in the current weather conditions. Further inquiries will remain ongoing in the woods, involving officers and specialist animal experts.”

The unauthorised release of the animals, which worried local farmers and gamekeepers, has infuriated conservationists who are working on a lengthy and officially sanctioned project to set up an approved programme to reintroduce lynx in the region.

The RZSS said their release was “highly irresponsible”. It said the animals, members of a wild cat species that appear to have been bred in captivity, would have been likely to die in the wild, particularly in the depths of winter.

They were released next to a forest road used regularly for logging operations, which put them at risk of being crushed by trucks. “Whoever did this has absolutely no regard for the welfare of these animals,” said one source.

The RZSS has a network of camera traps in nearby forests as part of a programme to repopulate the Cairngorms with wildcats, a native breed that has been on the brink of extinction, using animals bred at the wildlife park.

It released 19 satellite-tagged wildcats in October 2023, the first time a predatory mammal has been lawfully reintroduced in the UK. Some are already successfully breeding in the wild; the RZSS plans to release up to 60, in separate phases.

The first pair of lynx were spotted on Wednesday evening near a layby where straw bedding was strewn around, and they seemed to be comfortable around people.

Willie Anderson, a deputy team leader of Cairngorm mountain rescue, came within 60 metres of the pair. “They had definitely been illegally released because they were 100 yards from a pile of straw bedding that contained dead chicks and, interestingly, porcupine quills – the bedding was peppered with porcupine quills,” he said on Thursday.

“They were very tame and you could see they had been released from a nearby layby because there was the straw there, too. They were only 100 yards from that spot and the road. I don’t think they would have survived in the wild.”

Edward Mountain, a Scottish Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said local farmers and gamekeepers feared this could be a case of “guerrilla rewilding”, where activists were trying to circumvent the slow-paced official lynx reintroduction programme.

He said the the farmers and gamekeepers feared the lynx could turn on their sheep and gamebirds out of hunger. There are reports some were prepared to shoot any lynx seen on their land. “They’re used to humans so I think the fear is that the cats could starve and will, in turn, turn to easy prey, which could be sheep or gamebirds, which is what the keepers are saying to me.”

He said local landowners believed this illegal activity was more widespread than acknowledged, and pointed to the unlawful release of beavers in parts of Perthshire in the early to mid-2000s.

Ecologists estimate about 1,000 beavers are living in the wild in Scotland, having spread across the southern Highlands, and colonising rivers in the Forth River catchment, west of Edinburgh.

Mountain said some land managers believed sea eagles and goshawks may have been illegally released in the area – a theory rejected by conservationists.