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| NEWS in brief .. |
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Wicklow Woodpecker Study Group, Trapping of Wild Birds, Arctic Terns,
White-tailed Sea Eagle in Sligo, Amendments to Wildlife Acts, 100 Years of Bird Ringing, Squirrels & feeders, Inland Brent Survey, Colour-ringed Sanderling,
Ireland's Seabirds, Spring Hunting - Malta, Ireland's SPA failure, Eagle Owl,
Dead Sea Eagles, Wexford Harbour SPA, Red Kite survives Alphachloralose poison, What's new?,
Irish Squirrel Survey, Rogerstown Hide, Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles, Climate Change & Birds, Lazy Waders,
Biodiversity Data Centre, Hedgerows, Dublin Bird Race, Italian Poachers, East Coast Sea Bird Deaths, John Kilbracken 1920-2006,
Wildlife Rangers, Don't call us - period (NPWS), Bird Flu,
Poland .. see it while you can, Dalkey Tern Project, Cutting Hedgerows, Weasel Words in the Free State, France: October’s body count,
Embankment to screen birds from garish golfers,
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The Golden Eagle Trust .. Stop Poison Petition Please sign the petition below to help put an end to indiscriminate poisoning methods which threaten Ireland's Birds of Prey.
This petition is now closed after 7622 signatures online alone. Unfortunately due to the total inaction of the Ministers for the Environment
and for Agriculture poisoning
has reached a new "high" in spring 2010. Complaints should now be addressed to: http://www.goldeneagle.ie/portal.php?z=197
"Over the last the last 16 months alone, we have
managed to recover and confirm that 1 Golden Eagle, 4 White-tailed Eagles and
1 Red Kite have been poisoned in Ireland. The Irish poisoning legislation is
now demonstrably in breach of the European Birds Directive".
Since then a White-tailed Eagle has been found dead in Co Kerry on 17-03-2009, most
likely poisoned.
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Features .. Dublin Port expansion inquiry .. An Bord Pleanála's decision .. 09.06.2010 Dublin Bay SPA to be expanded under the EU Birds Directive .. 28.05.2008 Hen Harriers, EU Site Designations, .... |
| Quote of the Week |
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Biodiversity is such a boring term that it’s no wonder it hasn’t caught the public imagination.
The question of biological diversity is on the same scale as climate protection.
Putting up flocks of waterbirds and waders from frozen lakes is a casual unkindness.
You’d struggle to dream up a dirtier, more inefficient, idiotic and environmentally
criminal way to produce electricity.
People are terrified of touching something that's dead, and now bird flu has made it even worse.
Look at the pine marten, the most
nasty vicious bird that you have ever seen. They were never in Ireland but have been introduced.
Over the last the last 16 months alone, we have
managed to recover and confirm that 1 Golden
Eagle, 4 White-tailed Eagles and 1 Red Kite
have been poisoned in Ireland. The Irish
poisoning legislation is now demonstrably in
breach of the European Birds Directive.
Almost all of the "frequently asked questions" on the Natura section of the National Parks
and Wildlife Service website, which designates Natura 2000 sites in Ireland, is dedicated
to reassuring farmers about their property rights under the scheme, rather than stressing
the benefits of conservation to the public at large.
So while the State is giving farmers grants to turn farmland into forests, the
State forestry agency (Coillte) is balancing its books by turning forestry into
development land (373 hectares in 2006 alone).
Bird life is important. But the Bay is also important as a public amenity. Some of the ideas,
like a Sandycove to Sutton cycleway, I think are wonderful.
Contrary to the views of most of these "eco-twits", we can't reasonably walk or cycle or take
a kayak to get on and off the island.
Sunday afternoon and two Brent are swimming in the Liffey just off the Poolbeg pier.
My Department has been concerned for some time that the use of meat
baits to poison or catch pest birds could lead to the accidental poisoning of birds of prey
such as the reintroduced white tailed eagles, golden eagles and red kites, as well as
established species including buzzards. This is a prudent measure in order to greatly
reduce the risk of accidental killing of birds of prey.
.. bird enthusiasts know all to well the damage magpies do by scavenging the nests of our
indigenous songbirds.
You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 (most endangered primate) species in a single
football stadium; that’s how few of them remain on Earth today.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern should stop giving out about "snails and swans" holding up roads when it was he who encouraged
support for the European treaty that brought in the safeguards for them.
Mr Carey warned that the use of heritage to stifle development "rarely advances the cause of that heritage".
Fishing for pleasure shall NOT be permitted, unless in an area and during a period of time so designated by the Council.
The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. We have to ask ourselves what is
going on here.
Texas State Representative Edmund Kuempel has introduced a measure that would allow blind people
to hunt any game that sighted people can currently pursue.
Earlier this year, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche asked an umbrella body
of 24 environmental protection groups to put forward six nominees for membership
of the Environmental Protection Agency Advisory Committee. He then promptly ignored all six, and made his own
appointments.
The environment is a much more significant factor in explaining our well-being or our happiness than
was thought previously and it's just as important as having a job, just as important as your income.
There is, however, the whiff of a political "con job" about this
development ... In other countries, the functions of a national
trust are far broader. And such bodies enjoy significant autonomy.
It's not every child that can tell the difference between a
greater and lesser black-backed gull.
Furthermore, the geographic spread of the disease (Avian influenza) does not correlate with
migratory routes and seasons. The pattern of outbreaks follows major road and rail routes, not flyways.
According to Frank Corcoran, national chairman of An Taisce, Mr Roche's decision to overlook all
six of the nominees put forward by the NGO umbrella group in his appointments to the (EPA)
advisory committee -"sends a clear signal" that the Minister "places no value on the input
of civil society" into the whole area of environmental protection.
My high this year is the increase of interest that ordinary people have in the environment. 'Mooney Goes Wild' on RTE
radio showed a 20% increase in listenership, with a quarter of a million people tuning in.
Research for the Heritage Council showed that less than three per cent of the population considered landscape
as part of their national heritage.
The whole point of Coillte's refusal to accept that it is a public body is to deny that the public has any
right to be informed about its activities. It is claiming, in essence, that it is not accountable either to the public
or to the political process.
The DSPCA shelter gets a government grant of €17,000 a year ..
Serious birdwatchers are complete and total freaks, worthy of every stereotype that has been heaped on them, and
then some. Whether they are American listers or British twitchers, they are a scary group of extremists.
This is rather like councillors from Belmullet visiting Venice for a few tips on how to build a Lido ..
We would be interested if anyone could produce the evidence that wind farms kill birds.
The board (An Bord Pleanála) ... has been rubber-stamping the Government's roads
programme, even in cases where it had serious reservations ...
Tree-planting is not synonymous with conservation; it is an admission that conservation
has failed. The land is full of young trees which would grow into big trees if tidy-minded
people did not cut them down.
The "way of life" that hunters claim is threatened is a bullying feudal one.
To read In Time's Eye now (by "Y", otherwise Douglas Gageby; a collection was published by Town House
in 2001) is to mourn the seeming
lack of any personal feeling for nature at any level among Ireland's people of power.
Mr Crofton said he understood that the clear impression was given in the phone call (from the Minister of the
Environment, Martin Cullen, to the CEO of the Heritage Council) that the NBRC (National Biological Records Centre) either went to
Waterford or would not be approved at all.
While the Irish Green and Labour parties' representatives were highly supportive of such measures (protection
of the environment), Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil MEPs were overwhelmingly negative. Overall, their respective political
groupings in the (EU) Parliament voted against protection for the environment in almost four out of five cases.
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| Tne Very Best of Quote of the Week ... here |
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