DESIGN FICTION: Transfer Season

DESIGN FICTION: TRANSFER SEASON

Kent, 2032

Hello everybody and welcome to Transfer night. It's that time of the year again, and of course we have an amazing show for you.

Big news! Big, big news for our listeners in Kent. Good things are on the way.

Let's remind ourselves. We've been through this many years, most of us. But it only comes around once a year, and we have new members on the stream. So let's run through very quickly how the process works. We have a Source who has animals they are willing to send to be reintroduced to another part of the world. Usually it's national or regional wildlife foundations, conservation organisations, or local biodiversity councils. But of course it could be private breeders and zoos also. These Sources are looking to get paid for providing the animals which will be reintroduced - mostly its cash, but from time to time we do see swaps. Then you have the Relocation Partner - the local Biodiversity Council that wishes to reintroduce the animals to some area under their jurisdiction. Again, these are wild animals we're speaking about. We're not interested in animals moving between conservation or breeding centres. Unless of course it's a temporary step in a Reintroduction.

Now the transfer details.

There are four levels to transfers. 'Applied and accepted' when a Reintroduction location puts forward their case and funding proposition to the Source and is accepted as a suitable Reintroduction Partner for a planned transfer. 'Animal identified and agreed' is given when the specific animals are assigned to the new location. 'Deal done - the receiving location is ready to accept the animal', pretty much what it says on the tin. The specific animal or animals are agreed to move and the Reintroduction partner is ready to accept them. And the one we all wait for, 'Here we go'. The animals are on their way.

Ok tonight we're focusing on three areas of the Atlantic with big news breaking in the past few hours: Kent, Mid Ulster, and Finistere. And it's a cracker. Two major headlines reported in The Telegraph and The Gaian. Kent to see the re-introduction of Carpathian wolves in 2032! Now let's take a quick breather. We've been here before. We've been here last year - we thought we were getting three breeding pairs. And lost out on all of them! Is this more of the same again? I'm not sure I can do another summer window of this. You all know I'm based in Kent, so this one hurt. The disappointment last year was unbearable.

So let's remind ourselves what happened. Kent Ecosystem Managers and Biodiversity Council have been in the market for wolves for more than three years now. They've made it well known that they're interested in Carpathian wolves. We had 'Applied and Accepted' this time last year. And then in the final moments, Kent narrowly missed out to Shetlands for a breeding pair.

This year, the reports look positive. Well, let's hear where they're coming from. They're coming from Romania. This isn't the tabloids here in Britain making up stories to give us hope. No, the Romanian press is reporting that they've seen the wolves flourish in recent years in the East of the country. Transylvania, Moldavia and Muntenia. Locals in Muntenia in particular are seeing too many wolves for the first time in living history. According to the reports, this is harming the ecosystem and harming their programme of reintroducing Elk. So they're eager to moving on a larger cohort of wolves than before. Instead of moving on 10 breeding pairs this year as they typically would do. This season they will look to relocated 25 pairs.

And this brings Kent back into the picture.

Now with such a major move imminent, surely Kent must be high on the list, having missed out so closely last year.

Well .... not quite.

In the wake of the Carpathians falling through last year, Kent were compensated with two high-profile signings. The Dalmatian Pelican and two pairs of Lanner falcons. The Lanner falcons had bird-watchers extremely excited. The rare bird of prey is one of the only pairs in the UK that have successfully bred.

So Kent's budget and their position on the national priority list is significantly lower than it was last year.

A further wrinkle is the opposition to last years planned wolf reintroduction. The opposition we all know has been there in the farming community, and the Sustainable Ag Allotments.

But it picked up in Greater London and into the Kent Downs following the viral deepfake of a young child being mauled by a wolf, supposedly in Romania. Despite being debunked and aggressively withdrawn by the streaming platforms, the meme had legs and morphed into different formats too quickly to catch. The word was out and the protests and threats to hunt the wolves were a deciding factor in dropping Kent as a Reintroduction Partner.

That's still hanging over us, so I don't want us to get too excited this year.

The good news? Transfer expert and journalist Gabi Rose-Davis - we had her on the show yesterday - has said that it's looking good for Kent this time round.

We will face competition, Bakhmut, Copenhagen, Belfast hinterland, Cote d'Armor - all in for the wolves this year. But Kent are supposedly favourites to rank in the places. They've approached the Brasov Biodiversity council, and offered a number of incentives including rights to the first mating pair from the Lanner Falcons and a sizeable cohort of the ever-growing elk population.

Again, it's likely to be a few interesting days and nights as we wait to see how the window unfolds.

There is of course always the risk of last minute bids coming in. We saw that last year with the spending and reallocation driven by the Gates Foundation. They were criticised by Fair Play rules. However, the investments they made have been working well in Strathclyde and Normandy.

Exciting times. Stay tuned for updates and we'll be back with news from mid-Ulster after this message from our sponsors.