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A nice story, but some dodgy science here. I've been studying 3 of these species for 5-20 yrs in British woods & Bialowieza forest. Lynx are great, but they don't & won't have the simple simplistic 'silver bullet' effect that @Rebirding1 outlines here. Here's why... 1/x https://twitter.com/Rebirding1/status/1323941190081851393
Lynx are v low density. Even in Bialowieza they're rare, just a couple of animals in 47 km sq of National Park forest. There's several wolf packs vs a handful of Lynx. The main deer are Red Deer. Compared to Bialowieza, British woods have far denser shrub layer, not less. 2/x
Lynx may suppress foxes/martens in some cases, but isn't obvious in Bialowieza, as they're common (Wolves don't seem to suppress them much either!). Foxes & martens are THE major predators of ground-nesting birds in our Bialowieza study, despite Lynx. 3/x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ibi.12679
For UK Wood Warblers, there's no sign that deer are related to their decline, at all. Studies show moderate grazing is good for them. BTO/RSPB's Repeat Woodland Bid Survey found no habitat changes correlated with the decline. Deer aren't causing decline, so Lynx wont fix it. 4/x
Marsh Tit decline is also unrelated to deer. I did a PhD on this: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/20719/. Marsh Tits need multi-layered woods with good shrub & canopy layers. This has INCREASED in UK woods, not declined, despite deer (p.17+ of PhD). Again, a red herring that Lynx can't fix. 5/x
This post is misleading, as in E Europe only Thrush Nightingale occurs, but are not common within the Bialowieza forest itself, where thorn thickets are actually rare in the area, very unlike hawthorn/blackthorn/bramble thickets in British shrubby woods & scrub. 6/x
Lynx are fantastic & I'd love to see them back in UK. Lynx won't harm, but they'd have no real impact on woodland bird declines, they're v complex & seem species-specific. It's a simplistic theory that doesn't bear scrutiny in UK, or even Bialowieza. We need real solutions. /end
There's a good paper here showing interaction between Lynx, Wolves, deer, vegetation & people in Bialowieza. It shows Lynx avoid people & (most importantly for @Rebirding1's theory) have negligible effect on deer behaviour. But Wolves certainly do! https://elifesciences.org/articles/44937
