Red-list birds of "highest conservation concern" will be blasted to death by shooters from this Thursday, 1st September 2022, after Heritage Ministers Darragh O’Brien and Malcolm Noonan refused to remove the threatened species from a killing list.
The open seasons order contains birds as well as deer and the Irish Hare.
Among the birds are the following which are categorised as threatened red-list birds:
Red Grouse, Goldeneye, Scaup, Pochard, Shoveler, Golden Plover, Snipe, Woodcock
Snipe and Scaup have worryingly gone from amber conservation status to red, with breeding populations of snipe in Ireland now "IN SEVERE DECLINE”. Despite this, hunters are free to shoot them out of the sky for five months - 1 September to 31 January.
Pochard and Goldeneye may also been gunned down in the same period. Both have experienced severe declines in their wintering populations.
Also on the shooting list are amber-list birds which are threatened birds of “medium conservation concern”
Greylag Goose, Pintail, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Wigeon, Mallard, Teal.
Despite fears for the future of these species, Heritage Ministers Darragh O’Brien and Malcolm Noonan are allowing hunters to continue killing them for amusement.
This is a completely reckless move and must be reversed. The priority should be to protect Ireland’s wildlife and not to appease the minority who consider it fun to reduce these magnificent wonders of nature to lifeless lumps of bloodied feathers and shattered bones.
Minister Noonan has been quoted in Agriland as saying that “considerable work has been undertaken by the National Parks and Wildlife Services to set out a range of options available for future open season orders”.
The one and only option is to immediately remove these birds from the open season order and afford them the protection they so desperately require.
There is no necessity to embark on a “wide-ranging consultation with stakeholders and interest groups”. It has already been established by BirdWatch Ireland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) that these birds are threatened amber- and red-list species of “conservation concern”. All of the remaining individuals are precious and every effort must be made to protect them.
Will the fate of these birds be that of the curlew which is now on the brink of extinction? It wasn’t until 2012, when the number of breeding pairs had plummeted by up to 96%, that shooting them was finally banned. An unforgivable failure by those tasked with protecting them.
And how sad that the Irish Hare, an icon of Ireland’s wildlife heritage, remains on the open season list. These timid and threatened creatures will also be blasted to death as they sit inoffensively in fields. They will be chased to exhaustion by packs of hounds and torn to bits. And, thanks to a licence shamefully granted by Minister O’Brien, coursers are now netting thousands of them from the wild for use as live bait for greyhounds to chase - all so that a merciless mob can come to coursing meetings and gamble on which dogs will force the hares to change direction first.
There should be no debate about, or delay in, ending the shooting and hunting of threatened species.
Read the "Birds of Conservation Concern in Ireland 4: 2020–2026" report at
https://birdwatchireland.ie/app/uploads/2021/04/BOCCI-2020-2026.pdf
See the NPWS open season order at
https://www.npws.ie/legislation/irish-law/open-seasons-order
URGENT ACTION ALERT
Please join us in urging Ministers Darragh O’Brien and Malcolm Noonan to, at the very least, immediately remove the amber- and red-list birds - and the Irish Hare - from the open season list.
Encourage them to give full protection to all Irish birds and mammals.
Minister Darragh O’Brien (Fianna Fail, Dublin Fingal)
Tel: (01) 618 3802 OR (086) 251 9893
Email: darragh.obrien@oireachtas.ie; minister@housing.gov.ie; natureconservation@housing.gov.ie; WildlifeLicence@housing.gov.ie
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DarraghOBrienTD
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DarraghOBrienTD
Malcolm Noonan TD (Green Party, Carlow Kilkenny)
Minister of State for Heritage
Tel: (01) 618 3148 OR (01) 618 3156
Email: mos@housing.gov.ie; malcolm.noonan@oireachtas.ie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/votemalcolmnoonan1/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/noonan_malcolm