Reintroductions are increasingly used to restore biodiversity and may be the only hope for wildlife that has been lost from an area. Without such extreme conservation action, some species will be consigned to history.
Driven to the brink by relentless persecution and – more recently – hybridisation, the Wildcat is one of Britain’s rarest mammals, surviving only in a small area of Scotland. After more than a century of absence south of the border, is it time to bring this elusive predator back to England?