Awoo! Let’s welcome our best friend back to the wild

There are now wolf packs happily living in far more densely populated countries than Scotland, including in France, Belgium and Germany, writes Donnachadh McCarthy

Human culture has made the wolf the repository of all our fears of nature, from the devouring wolf in Red Riding Hood to the demonic werewolves in movies (Getty)

One of Britain’s most distinguished rewilding pioneers has issued a 2023 new year challenge to Britain – a stretch goal to reintroduce our native wolf by 2043.

Alan Watson Featherstone, founder of the rewilding Trees for Life project in the Scottish Highlands (An Gáidhealtachd), believes that in order to restore health to Scotland’s devastated ecosystems, the return of extinct carnivores such as the lynx and wolf is necessary.

Healthy ecosystems depend on three levels – or trophic groups – being in balance with each other: a prodigious and varied supply of plant foods, herbivores who graze on them and carnivores who feed off the herbivores.