Have you not tried a mouth organ to bring on the howl? Always worked for our old dog.😃
A recording of the local scrapman and his van's tune from the horn ("Old I-ron") works neatly for our dog. And his brother. Put them together and it's really, really funny.
Someone is trying to reintroduce lynx in the UK (and in Keilder IIRC) but I don’t know how successful they’ve been so far. Also I thought they were really shy so not likely to see much apart from the odd ex-deer?
If you never see them they could be those “missing lynx” people talk about.
I do sometimes ride near a wildlife park and also a big cat sanctuary. At night or even day a big cat making noise is distinctly unnerving.
There's a pride of lions at a small sanctuary next to a bridleway on the edge of Nottingham. Took a group riding over there last summer who didn't believe it. The lions helpfully growled as we rode along the edge of the enclosure before we could see them - that focused minds 🤣
They had cubs last year as well - so cute!
We have wild Lynx and Wolves locally.
The ex has come across the Lynx before now when she's been out running early morning (well before 6 am) they generally take one look and run off. Occasionally they've taken two looks, a stretch and done a runner.
The big wolf pack was extensively culled 5-6 years ago, because they took some sheep (half a dozen or so) and apparently there is then a significant risk that they will simply keep going back for more sheep as they are far easier to hunt than deer.
What was left of the wolves are still around, and regularly massacre the local deer population, i sometimes come across bits of fairly freshly killed deer when out and about in the woods and one of my neighbours about 2km away posted some pictures last spring of three or four of them playing in the meadow behind her house, so they are definitely still about.
Two riders I know both spotted lynx on different rides in the forests in the Neath valley, about 20 odd years ago. Both had good views of the animals and are reliable people. The forest and open moorland stretch for many miles - basically most of the way across Wales - so there’s no lack of habitat, but there was a question of where they came from.
The possible answer was a small zoo nearby which closed down about 25 years ago and had a relaxed system for getting rid of unwanted animals. A colleague, who went to the school at the edge of the zoo, recently said that there were instances when they weren’t allowed onto the playing fields because of loose animals. (Wolves and monkeys were mentioned.)
