MORE than 70 farmers, landowners and residents gathered on Tuesday to demonstrate their opposition to proposals to release six wildcats in their midst.

The meeting in Tarset Village Hall was organised in response to a widely reported press release issued by Lynx UK Trust saying its plans had the backing of “major local landowners covering 700km2 of potential lynx habitat”.

Lynx UK is awaiting a decision from Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on the application it submitted a year ago for permission to reintroduce four female and two male Eurasian lynx into Kielder Forest on a five-year trial basis.

Lynx in their natural state died out in Britain more than 1,000 years ago.

Tuesday night’s meeting, which was also attended by representatives of the National Sheep Association, produced a statement which NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said reflected the feelings of all present.

The aim of the meeting had been to refute the claims made by Dr Paul O’Donoghue, Lynx UK’s chief scientific advisor, that permission from all relevant landowners had been obtained for the release of the lynx.

The statement read: “We utterly deplore the attempt by Lynx Trust UK to misinform the public through the press. In the light of this proven unreliability, we are calling on Natural England to thoroughly test all claims made within the licensing application by the Lynx UK Trust.

“In particular we are challenging the claims made about the public consultation run by the trust in our area and the claimed support. We are calling on Natural England to run its own public consultation exercise within the affected communities before any decision is made.”

The group also stressed it was not driven by the sole concern of potential sheep losses.

Its members were also passionate about protecting the many successful ecological projects already running in the Kielder area and, indeed, the welfare of the lynx themselves – arguing that they would be released into a habitat that was not big enough for them to thrive in naturally.

Advocates of the Lynx UK project say the reintroduction of just such an apex predator would help to control the UK’s over-population of deer, reducing damage to forests and improving habitat for smaller animals in the process.

The trust also claims the boost it would give to Kielder’s tourism industry would run into “tens of millions of pounds for the local rural economy, based on similar reintroduction projects in Europe”.

Conservation charity the Wildwood Trust, which has extensive experience of developing conservation licensing systems for a range of threatened species, is now championing the cause.

Director Peter Smith said: “Lynx aren’t the complete solution, but they are a keystone element in the construction of one.

“We’re very happy to be making a big commitment of time, staff and resources to this project, and thoroughly believe the time is perfect for these shy animals to come back to the UK.”