Latest news with #ecologists
Irish Times
7 days ago
- Irish Times
Ireland's threatened corncrakes desperately need open, diverse and life-filled fields
One summer's day a few years ago, I boarded a boat on Magheraroarty pier, on the northwest coast of Donegal, and took off for Tory Island. But the vessel wasn't full of day trippers wanting to visit Ireland's most remote inhabited island; instead, my fellow passengers were of the shaggy, four-legged kind – a small herd of young, female black Galloway cattle, a hardy breed from Scotland accustomed to wind and salt-laden rain. It had been 25 years since cattle had set foot on Tory, and their return to the island came with one clear purpose: to graze through the thick layers of scutch grass that had taken over the fields. The beneficiary was the corncrake, a bird whose continued existence in Ireland is conservation-dependent and critically reliant on active intervention and management by ecologists, farmers and landowners. On Tory Island – often called Ireland's 'corncrake capital' – the return of this bird each spring is like the arrival of a headline act with a non-negotiable tour rider. In order for it to successfully breed on the ground, the corncrake's needs are precise: vegetation must reach at least 20 centimetres in height by mid-May, ideally of nettles, meadowsweet, or cow parsley; no mowing or machinery can disturb the field until August; the ground should be moist – but not flooded – and teem with insects; the area must be spacious enough to roam freely, but with a constant opportunity to hide from predators; and no fertiliser or reseeding during the summer is possible. When we arrived at the pier on Tory, a small group of islanders gathered while the local priest blessed the new bovine residents, before they were led to a nearby field to begin their work in the tangled scutch. These tough, impenetrable fields offer adult corncrakes no room to weave through and few insects on which to feed. For chicks, it's like being trapped in a room crammed wall-to-wall with old furniture – impossible to navigate. Cattle clear out the junk by grazing on the sweet, young shoots, gradually weakening the underground stems, and in doing so, they helps to create an open, diverse and life-filled field that corncrakes so desperately need. READ MORE That day on the island, I heard a corncrake's call. It's a bird of multiple talents: adept at soaring through the air for thousands of kilometres from central and southern Africa to reach here, the corncrake is also good at disappearing into the landscape. But after a bit of time, with almost comic effect, it popped its head above the grass, offering a quick but intense glimpse before vanishing into the ground once more. In Ralph Sheppard's thoroughly researched and illuminating new book, The Birds of County Donegal: Residents, Regulars and Rarities, he shares a memory from the 1960s when, from his home in east Donegal, he heard the sound of 10 corncrakes in a single night. 'The continuous rasping call of the corncrake may have prevented sleep, but it is sadly missed as an evocative sound of summer,' he writes. Like the nightjar, grey partridge and corn bunting before it, the corncrake would too have disappeared from Donegal were it not for the national conservation efforts to save it, he notes. Extinction is the certain fate of the ring ouzel, or 'mountain blackbird', which is now down to a single bird in the southern uplands of Donegal, and one breeding pair in the North, in what Sheppard says is the 'last gasp in Ireland of this once-familiar songbird'. It's not all about decline. Visitors such as reed warblers, garganey, little ringed plover and cattle egrets may soon become regular summer breeders in the county. Sheppard speculates that the vagrant ring-necked duck might become the first known colonisation by an American species, having first been spotted in Donegal back in 1984 on Dunfanaghy's New Lake. This lake is a relatively recent addition to Donegal's landscape, having formed just over a century ago. During the first World War, the demand for bedding and feed for horses led to harvesting marram grass from the sand dunes around Sheep Haven Bay and Dunfanaghy. This disturbed the dunes, causing sand to settle and eventually block off the sea, trapping water behind it and creating the lake. Since 1984, 97 sightings of this North American duck species have been recorded in Donegal, including at Lough Fern, Inch and Durnesh Lough and Tory Island. To stop the decline of vulnerable species and to 'lay out a welcome mat' for new arrivals, Sheppard advocates for changes in how land is managed. On the uplands, replace sheep with grazing cattle, ideally lightweight breeds such as Dexter, Kerry or Galloway. Native grasslands, such as lime-rich coastal machair, should be grazed in winter and managed using low-intensity farming methods. Native woodlands need to be restored; pollution of wetlands need to stop; and nature corridors should form a continuous network to allow species to thrive without becoming isolated. Sheppard emphasises the need to 'let nature decide how to proceed'. We're very far from yielding to ecological limits and allowing natural processes to shape how we manage land. As a result, the efforts to keep species such as the corncrake from extinction are resource-intensive in the face of pressures. Since 1993, millions of euro of public money has gone into corncrake conservation. On Tory Island, actions such as the grazing Galloways have helped lift numbers from nine calling males in 2020 to 21 last year. The species continues to cling on, just about. 'We just have to learn to recognise and reward benefits that are not yet part of the economy,' Sheppard writes. 'Re-thinking what we mean by 'the economy' will be to the benefit of birds and other wildlife, and also to ourselves. Preserving and encouraging biodiversity in our own small corner is an obligation that we share with every other small corner – if abundant life, human and other, is to remain sustainable'.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Sheep farming is integral to the Lake District's heritage
Your piece (Conservationists call for Lake District to lose Unesco world heritage status, 7 June) quotes campaigners who criticise sheep farming in this most revered area of Britain. The Lake District is a national park, with protected and designated sites of special scientific interest. The fact that sheep farming and hefted livestock grazing has been core to its management for over 3,000 years suggests it has created something of value. How ironic that rather than celebrate (and further fine tune) its farmers and graziers, and the surrounding rural infrastructure that depends on this primary activity, ecologists want to see sheep farming's demise. Given the right policy framework and the public being prepared to support local food producers, the Lake District's farmers will be able to continue to adapt and deliver what it wants – the enhancement of natural resources, a nature-rich countryside, and a vibrant society with cultural heritage and a contribution to food security. That surely is what conservation should be about – a recognition of the whole, and not just singular outcomes. Finally, while sheep farming enterprises in these harsh regions may be financially marginal, if they are considered within an economy where money is recirculated locally, creating jobs and enterprise and supporting a rural community, then they're not such poor performers. Public support helps farmers to do more for nature and protect water and other resources. Farmers want to continue looking after the land they have farmed for centuries, ensuring public access, balancing farming with nature, and managing the landscape in a viable way for future StockerChief executive, National Sheep Association Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Independent
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Protected Indian wildlife in the gun over villager safety fears
Kerala is requesting the Indian government to amend the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 to allow local officials to swiftly manage wild animals that threaten lives or damage property. The state proposes classifying wild boars as vermin for a limited time, removing bonnet macaques from Schedule I protection, and permitting the killing of animals identified as maneaters. Kerala cites increasing human-wildlife conflict, with 273 of 941 village councils identified as hotspots, and government data showing 919 deaths and nearly 9,000 injuries from wildlife attacks between 2016-17 and January 2025. State authorities argue that current laws delay urgent action during wildlife emergencies, especially with Schedule I species, and seek to decentralise authority by allowing chief conservators of forests to issue "kill permits." The proposal has faced criticism from conservationists and ecologists, who warn that relaxing protections and permitting culling could set a dangerous precedent and disrupt ecosystems.
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
There's an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading
Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight. I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I've finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones. What I'm talking about are the places now dominated by a single plant species, called Molinia caerulea or purple moor-grass. Over the past 50 years, it has swarmed across vast upland areas: in much of Wales, on Dartmoor, Exmoor, in the Pennines, Peak District, North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales and many parts of Scotland. Molinia wastes are dismal places, grey-brown for much of the year, in which only the wind moves. As I know from bitter experience, you can explore them all day and see scarcely a bird or even an insect. Not that you would wish to walk there. The grass forms high tussocks through which it is almost impossible to push. As it happens, most of the places that have succumbed to Molinia monoculture are 'access land'. Much of the pittance of England and Wales in which we are allowed to walk freely has become inaccessible. In a great victory a fortnight ago, the supreme court ruled that we have a right to wild camp on Dartmoor. But on many parts of the moor, you wouldn't want to exercise it. As soon as the grass takes hold, all opportunities for enjoyment and employment cease. Molinia challenges the definition of an invasive species. The term is supposed to refer only to non-native organisms. But while it has always been part of our upland flora, it appears to have spread further and faster than any introduced plant in the UK, and with greater ecological consequences. It is uncontrolled by herbivores, disease or natural successional processes (transitions to other plant communities). In fact, it stops these processes in their tracks. Given the scale of the problem, it is remarkably little studied and discussed. I cannot find even a reliable estimate of the area affected: the most recent in England is nearly 10 years old, and I can discover none for Wales or Scotland. But in the southern Cambrian Mountains alone, judging by a combination of my walks and satellite imagery, there appears to be a dead zone covering roughly 300 sq km, in which little but this one species grows. Most of central Dartmoor is now Molinia desert, and just as disheartening and hard to traverse. Why is this happening? It seems to be a combination of forces. One is 'headage payments': subsidies that were issued in the second half of the 20th century, which paid farmers for the number of animals they kept. They created an incentive to cram the land with as many sheep and cattle as possible. This, in combination with burning moorland to produce fresh shoots for the livestock to eat, seems in some places to have pushed ecosystems beyond their tipping points. Even, as in parts of the Cambrians, where there have been no sheep grazing for 40 years, as there's nothing left to eat (sheep will scarcely touch Molinia), there has been no recovery. Another likely factor is nitrogen deposition. Nitrogen compounds rain down on Britain's habitats at a rate of roughly 29kg per hectare per year. They are produced by livestock farming, traffic and industry. Drainage (largely for farming) also appears to accelerate the spread: Molinia thrives as peat dries out. The Dartmoor ecologist and nature campaigner Tony Whitehead tells me that the degradation of peat caused by drainage, excavation, burning and grazing pressure is likely to be the primary accelerant. Burning in particular – carried out by sheep farmers on Dartmoor and Exmoor and by grouse shoots on northern English moors and in Scotland – favours the plant. While other species are destroyed, Molinia is protected by its deep roots and tussocks, which guard its buds. Various solutions are proposed, but few are satisfactory. One approach is to blast the grass with the herbicide glyphosate. It works for a while, but leaves an even grimmer waste, likely to be colonised again by Molinia. Others propose yet more burning, and/or grazing with cattle or ponies: temporary 'solutions' that look like blood-letting to cure anaemia. Whitehead has watched what happens: the animals graze around the edges of the Molinia, eating only small amounts, while continuing to knock back other plant species. After early summer, they won't touch the stuff, as its nutritional value declines steeply. A new report by the government agency Natural England states that livestock grazing is not required to protect the main habitat type – blanket mire – that Molinia threatens. Rewetting the land, by blocking drains and building bunds and perhaps, as one team is attempting, planting clumps of sphagnum moss among the grass, in order to restore the peat, seems to be the only means of reviving blanket mire. It also makes the land less prone to fire. In other places, we should be encouraging the return of trees, through planting and excluding livestock. Most of the areas overtaken by Molinia have a temperature and moisture range that would favour temperate rainforest: a vanishingly rare, rich and complex habitat. As the trees mature, they should shade out the grass. In some wet areas, I'd like to see the return of water-tolerant species such as alder, downy birch and willow, to restore upland carr, another rich and scarce habitat. But anyone who wants to rewild upland ecosystems hits a wall of vested interests – mostly sheep farmers and grouse moor owners – who, like the commercial fishing sector, insist on doing the wrong thing until it destroys their own industry. Where is the urgent government programme? Where is there even official acknowledgment that we have a problem? To fix something, first you must see it. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
News.com.au
06-06-2025
- Science
- News.com.au
Aussie park you can see ‘extinct' animals
Tourists and Aussies alike will now be able to see local animals that became extinct at Nungatta in South East Forest National Park. A 25km-long feral-proof fence now surrounds the area with visitors only allowed to walk around the edge. But plans to allow curious walkers inside are set for later this year. In the 2000-hectare park will be native species that are locally extinct but survived in small numbers elsewhere, giving them a second chance. National Parks and Wildlife Service has to develop and install gates that will let walkers in, while keeping predators outside. More than 40 remote cameras will constantly monitoring the area, to detect any potential incursions by feral animals such as feral cats or foxes. According to the NSW Government, across Australia, feral cats alone are estimated to kill more than 1.5 billion native animals every year. The critically endangered smoky mouse became the first species to be reintroduced into the area, in September 2024. Since then, 79 smoky mice have been released and ecologists recently detected the first juvenile smoky mice known to be born in the area. The long-footed potoroo, eastern bettong, eastern quoll and New Holland mouse are expected to be reintroduced in the coming years. Nungatta, which is one of 10 feral predator-free areas established by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), is the first of its kind on the South Coast. It was chosen from more than 35 potential sites due to its suitable habitat for reintroduced species. The program represents one of NSW's most significant threatened species restoration initiatives, and is funded by the NSW Environmental Trust and NPWS. 'The opening of Nungatta demonstrates the Minns Labor Government's commitment to protecting and restoring our environment, including native animals and their habitats,' Minister for the Environment, Penny Sharpe, said in a statement on Thursday. 'The team at National Parks along with the Saving our Species program has already successfully reintroduced the critically endangered smoky mouse, and with the fence now complete, Nungatta will be a safe haven to even more threatened species.' Meanwhile, Yiraaldiya National Park, also on the list, has locally extinct native wildlife being reintroduced. This includes eastern bettongs, koalas, long-nosed bandicoots, and the New Holland mouse. The New Holland mouse was presumed extinct in NSW until it was rediscovered in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in 1967. 'For this reason, there is no access to the park while the feral predator-free area is being established,' NSW National Parks and Wildlife Servicesaid on its site.
