What chance Highland dances with wolves?

Plans to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish wild are fraught with difficulty.

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Well not MFI heir, millionaire and Highland landowner, Paul Lister. He’s raised eyebrows with plans to create a Wilderness Park on 23,000 acres of the Alladale Estate in Sutherland populated with the Big Five bear, lynx, boar, moose and wolf.

Scary . . . or exciting?

You don’t need to be Little Red Riding Hood to fear the wolf. In Scotland these natural predators lived closer to people, sheep and cattle than in the wild forests of Scandinavia and North America. Wars left corpses littering battlefields and gave some packs a taste for human flesh. This meant wolves became feared and hated as a personification of the Devil. The last wolf in Scotland (probably) was killed in 1743 at Findhorn but destruction of Scotland’s great natural forest, the wolf’s habitat, finally brought their extinction.

In recent years, public attitudes have softened. Other wild species like beavers and sea eagles have already been successfully re-introduced to Scotland. My dad, then an Eagle Star Insurance boss, was behind the first release of sea eagles on the Isle of Rum 40 years ago.

But Rum is a hard-to-reach Hebridean island. Alladale is just one hour north of Inverness, four miles east of an oft-bagged Munro and five miles west of Croick the Clearance location where Highlanders awaited eviction in a snow covered graveyard.

It may not be Sauchiehall Street, but there are people, ramblers, visitors and locals all around. Do they fancy walking with wolves?

Lister maintains they won’t have to. A 50-mile electrified fence will surround posh cottages, a working croft and the existing luxury lodge with visitors taking jeep safaris to spot the 10-15 wolves, 20-30 bears, and lynx. The laird has slowly been adapting habitat to suit planting 800,000 native Scottish trees and reintroducing red squirrels, wildcat, wild boar and moose.

Well why not? It took a Frenchman to develop Skibo and an Australian to spot the romantic potential of William Wallace. Maybe it takes an Englishman to recreate Scotland’s truly wild landscapes and animals.

But there are big snags.

Lister needs more land if his dream of creating a 50,000-acre enclosure for the roaming carnivores is to become a reality. So far, his neighbouring landowners have been lukewarm. If he applies for a zoo licence the fact predator and prey are in the same enclosure may count against him. And ramblers could take legal action for being denied the right to roam.

There are practical concerns. Will electronic implants guarantee sightings and reassure locals about escapes? Will the single track road handle the traffic? Or will Lister make millions, block hard-won rights of access for walkers and pull up the drawbridge to all but exclusive high-paying guests?

Let’s face it. A visit to Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling costs £13.50 per adult. A night at the sumptuously furnished Alladale Lodge costs around £300 per person. The price for viewing Scottish wolves isn’t likely to be any more affordable for ordinary Scots.

Many folk admire Lister’s “re-wilding” idea. But if he’s really planning a giant zoo with exorbitantly high entrance fees in a private fiefdom behind an access-blocking electric fence, Scots will simply be excluded all over again from our own nature and landscape.

Walking with wolves would be exciting but not at the cost of the human right to roam.

It’s a howling shame, but Paul Lister will have to think again.