A Work of Hope - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 129

Name of
species

Approximate date of
extinction in Britain

Suitability for
reintroduction

Reintroduction efforts
so far

Hippo-
potamus

Like the elephant, it
was driven out by the
last glaciation, a little
over 100,000 years
ago, and later hunted
to extinction
elsewhere in Europe.

1 None. Our

hippopotamus was the
same species as the one
now surviving in Africa.
Suitable habitat in
Britain is now in short
supply. It can be
extremely dangerous.

Grey whale The most recent
palaeontological
remains, from Devon,
belonged to a whale
that died around ad
1610. 18

7 It appears to have lived

in all the seas around
Britain before it was
hunted to extinction. In
2005, Dr Andrew
Ramsey and Dr Owen
Nevin of the University
of Central Lancashire
announced that they
planned to fly fifty grey
whales from the Pacific
to the Irish Sea. 'Some
people will say it's
impossible, but we are
deadly serious about
this,' Dr Nevin said. 19
Nothing has been heard
of the idea since.

Walrus Late Bronze Age

remains found in the
Shetland islands. 20

2 Walrus are unlikely to

have bred in Britain, but
appear to have followed
their prey here.