After poisonings in Co Kerry, conservationists are taking no chances with the 20 eagle chicks flown in from Norway last week: their exact location is top secret, writes Brian O'Connell.
Last year, Government funding for natural heritage increased by 31 per cent, from €35.55 million to €46.665 million - an indication, perhaps, of the threats faced by our natural flora and fauna.
One of the government's priorities is to ensure that Ireland meets all its obligations under the EU directives on birds and habitats. Funding is also used for the enhancement of our national parks and reserves.
Apart from specific projects, such as the golden eagle, red rite and white-tailed eagle (all under the auspices of the Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project Trust), Ireland also has special plans for endangered species. These action plans are examining ways to ensure the continuation of our natural biodiversity, and animals such as otters, woodpeckers, red squirrels, birds of prey, snails and bats, have all been included in the schemes.
Meanwhile, the National Botanic Gardens has established an Irish Threatened Plant Species Conservation Programme, which is carrying out research on cultivating many of the 120 plant species it estimates are under threat.
WE KNOW THAT 20 white tail eagles were flown into Ireland from Norway last week, but their exact location in the Killarney National Park remains a closely guarded secret. Just as the eagles landed, measures were quickly put in place to ensure their safety, with conservationists carefully co-ordinating their feeding habits. The idea is to wean this year's clutch off carrion at an early stage, so that they take to fish sooner, and are not so dependent on land-based food for survival.
The reasons were simple: to sidestep the activities of conservation saboteurs. Of the 15 white-tailed eagles (also known as sea eagles) introduced to Ireland last year, only 11 survive, with four having been lost to poisoned bait. While Garda investigations into whether the poisonings were deliberate are still continuing, this time round conservationists are taking no chances.
In order to understand recent events in Kerry, it's worth reflecting for a moment on our Victorian ancestors. During a time when decidedly larger volumes of menacing creatures roamed our skies, the Victorians sought to assert man's dominance over nature by making an example of whatever vermin had the misfortune to cross their paths. For Victorians, the only view of such birds worth preserving was through a glass case, and while taxidermy flourished, certain species diminished dramatically.
Rural folklore carried tales of eagles swooping on babies sleeping innocently in their prams, or gorging on the flesh of young lambs. Shoot first, ask questions later, was the general feeling, as Ireland lost species that had been present here for thousands of years. Kites, golden eagles, sea eagles, osprey, goshawk, cranes, woodpeckers and capercaillies, were driven to the brink of extinction and beyond over the past century. A decade ago, however, the feathered fight back began.
Lorcan O'Toole, Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project manager, takes up the story, "By the mid-1990s, Ireland had so few birds of prey left. We were missing about six species of birds mainly because of persecution, such as shooting, poisoning or trapping.
"The decline began in the 19th century, and with advances such as the introduction of the breach loading guns came increased the pressure on these species. Of course, habitat loss has also played its part, and other smaller birds such as the crane and capercaillie also went missing. Some of these animals, it should be remembered, had been here since the last Ice Age."
Following many years of pre-project planning, the Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project began in 1999, when the Irish Raptor Study Group and the Curlew Trust Limited combined their resources and energies into a new joint venture. Working with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, as well as Scottish authorities, the decision was taken to try re-introducing a self-sustaining breeding population of golden eagles to Ireland after an absence of almost 100 years.
"We started off with the golden eagles because there was very little chance of the eagle finding its way to Ireland naturally," says O'Toole, "The Irish association with eagles is deep rooted, with many place names on ordinance survey maps reflecting this and family crests using the birds as symbols. But there has a been a 100-year void in our psyche, from a point where eagles were held in great reverence in the 16th and 17th century, we now have the lowest range of breeding birds of prey in all European Union countries."
Starting in June 2001, 12 wild golden eagles chicks were transferred from nests in Scotland, under special license from Scottish Natural Heritage, to Co Donegal. By 2007, 50 birds were released in Glenveagh National Park, and news that a golden eagle chick had hatched that year, for the first time in a century, sparked widespread national public and media interest.
MEANWHILE, THE FOUNDATION has continued with projects in other parts of the country, including importing red kites to a location in Wicklow and accelerating the white-tailed eagle programme in Kerry. Restoring Ireland's biodiversity to its natural state is the primary objective, while the conservation efforts also provide renewed opportunities for eco tourism.
Certain sections of the farming community, though, are accused of not wholeheartedly embracing the efforts, leading conservationists to fear that the work is being sabotaged.
Gerry Gunning, executive secretary on rural development for the Irish Farmers' Association, rejects the notion that excessive scaremongering has hindered the conservation efforts, and says farmers have genuine concerns that need to be addressed.
Farmers have been guardians of Ireland's biodiversity for generations, he says, a fact that is often ignored. Inevitably, modern farming practices have had an impact on certain animal and plant species, but over the last 15 years, through schemes such as the Rural Environment Protection Scheme, there has been a more formal recognition of the role farmers can play in protecting Ireland's natural flora and fauna.
"The farming community would have liked greater consultation in advance of these projects," Gunning says, "We looked at the experience introducing eagles to the Isle of Mull in Scotland in the 1980s, and there were sheep killed. Eventually, management plans had to be established with farmers there, and we feel such an approach should have been taken place in Kerry. Farmers have to eek out a living in these areas and if consulted properly, we could actually play a leading role in the survival of these birds."
Wildlife Expert Éanna Ní Lamha says that the financial return from restoring these birds to their natural habitat should be obvious in tourist terms. She sees no place for 19th century scaremongering, in 21st century Ireland.
"Most of these birds will feed on things like hares and rats," she says, "and, yes, if there is a sickly lamb on a mountain side they might go for that too. But what we have seen in Kerry is poisoned carcases left out for these birds deliberately by a few farmers."
Ní Lamha points out that since the 1960s, changing farming practices have led to many alterations in Ireland's eco system, with birds such as linnets, yellow hammer and goldfinches becoming increasingly rare. The encroachment isn't just limited to animals though - several plant species have either vanished completely or are nearing extinction from the Irish landscape.
One of those charged with maintaining our natural plant population is Dr Matthew Jebb, Keeper of Herbariums at the National Botanic Gardens.
WHILE EXOTIC AND FOREIGN plants have been grown in controlled environments in Ireland for centuries, it's only recently that home-grown plants have been fully examined, and the needs of threatened species understood.
Three species have completely disappeared from the Irish landscape in the past 100 years, while others remain under enormous threat.
One of those under threat is a flower called the "fleabane", known for its medicinal properties and perhaps the rarest natural plant left living in Ireland.
"There are a host of other plants under threat too," says Jebb. "Many of them are found in boglands or marginal lands, which historically were never farmed. In the last 30 years grants have enabled these marginal lands be brought back into agriculture and we find the plant species in these areas under particular threat at the moment."
Another plant facing extinction is the Killarney fern, which was decimated at the hands of our Victorian ancestors. "The Killarney fern is an extraordinary plant, which suffered because tourists to the area in Victorian times liked to bring some fern back as souvenirs from their visits," Jebb explains.
Ironically, modern growing and harvesting methods, for many years the nemesis of endangered plant species, may now hold the key to the plants' survival as the Botanical Gardens seeks to reverse destructive trends under controlled environments.
As with the bird of prey projects though, conservationists realise that they cannot nurse plants or animal species forever - there comes a stage when they have to fly the controlled nests and re-engage with the Irish landscape.
"As with any type of conservation, we can not be nursery maids forever," Jebb says.
TACKLING EXTINCTION
Last year, Government funding for natural heritage increased by 31 per cent, from €35.55 million to €46.665 million - an indication, perhaps, of the threats faced by our natural flora and fauna.
One of the government's priorities is to ensure that Ireland meets all its obligations under the EU directives on birds and habitats. Funding is also used for the enhancement of our national parks and reserves.
Apart from specific projects, such as the golden eagle, red rite and white-tailed eagle (all under the auspices of the Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project Trust), Ireland also has special plans for endangered species. These action plans are examining ways to ensure the continuation of our natural biodiversity, and animals such as otters, woodpeckers, red squirrels, birds of prey, snails and bats, have all been included in the schemes.
Meanwhile, the National Botanic Gardens has established an Irish Threatened Plant Species Conservation Programme, which is carrying out research on cultivating many of the 120 plant species it estimates are under threat.