Bootleg Beavers, Feral Pigs, and DIY Lynx: Is UK Rewilding Going Off the Rails?

Rewilding used to conjure images of faraway wilderness and well-funded eco-estates. Now? It’s backyard rivers, rogue lynx, and wild boar showing up where they were never invited.

In the past few months, there’ve been two suspected lynx releases, feral pigs roaming the Cairngorms in the UK, and “beaver bombing” on English rivers—a trend that sounds cute until you realize it means smuggling semi-aquatic rodents into ecosystems that aren’t ready for them.

These low-key wildlife ops have a certain outlaw appeal—less “official reintroduction program,” more of an “ecological punk show.” But as Roisin Campbell-Palmer of the Beaver Trust told The Observer: “It’s not just about opening the crate and letting them go.” She’s seen too many well-meaning releases go sideways. “If those animals aren’t accepted and face prolonged persecution…can we truly call this species restoration?”

Inside the UK Rewilding Project

Butterfly nerds have been pulling this kind of thing for centuries—Winston Churchill even dabbled—but releasing apex predators? That’s a different game. “Some people have a romantic view of what it’s like to be a wild animal out there,” says Campbell-Palmer. “To me, that’s just cruelty.”

Still, not all rewilding is rogue. Some groups are going fully legit—raising cash, buying land, and doing the work. In Harrogate, a spa town in England, a local collective crowdfunded 30 acres to create Long Lands Common—a community-run patch of rewilded land that connects with schools, supplies food banks, and revives woodland practices like coppicing.

“We’ve got all this resource now—let’s do as much as we can to ensure the safety of our natural environment,” designer George Eglese told The Observer, who helped launch the project.

Across the country, similar efforts are gaining momentum. In Liverpool, residents blocked a housing development and turned the land into a DIY nature reserve—complete with rescued hedgehogs, bat colonies, and a butterfly meadow grown over concrete using crushed Mersey grit. “If we don’t do it, nobody else will,” says activist Caroline Williams.

Big-ticket rewilding programs are being bolstered by biodiversity credits and philanthropic support. But it’s the small, scrappy projects—some rebellious, some righteous—that are pushing the pace.

“This is life and all its glorious complexity,” says Christoph Warrack, head of nature recovery group Common. Add people, place, politics—and yeah, it gets messy. But it matters.

Rewilding was never going to stay tame for long.