Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Hmmm,the good Prof is already faulty in claiming that Roe deer were made extinct by hunting.FACT is there were NEVER any native Roe deer in Ireland,post or pre ice age either.[ Or Muskrats either Being a native American critter in the first place].
Check out the Lissadell Roe deer thread for more info on this.To wit Roe were introduced in Lissadell as a experiment and gentlemans folly.It failed and the deer were either shot,or died off.Seeing there was only about a dozen anywayover the years.So if they are already faulty on this point in a scientific study,not to mind going in with" unconfirmed reports of released brown hares in limited numbers from the UK[Either there is or there is not,there are no maybes in scientific research].I would question wether this study is actually based on proper scientific study.Junk science,animal rights agendas, and pork barrel spring to mind.:(

A worried Ulster Wildlife Trust has set up an expert committee on what to do about it. But Dr Reid and Prof Ian Montgomery, the QUB head of animal ecology, seem to have small doubt. In a paper published by the Royal Irish Academy, they look back to Ireland's eradication of muskrats and roe deer during the early 20th century. "Immediate action," they advise, " is often the only opportunity for cost-effective eradication." They urge more research to see if this is warranted by the risk to the Irish hare, Lepus timidus hibernicus.

Tell us then when Roe was native here??Pre or post Ice age???Surely if that is true there must be plenty of Roe skulls found along the extinct Irish Elk????Ditto for muskrat???The ONLY historically accurate record of Roe here is Lissadell!Read the article I posted on this.If you can show us when the Roe was as native as Red [the only really native deer here,all others are imports] I will then stand corrected.

Alsowhen was Muskrat introduced here and how did they sucessfiully eradicate it???Seeing it is a good a survivor and breeder as the mink??

Read the article again...They assert Roe and muskrat were wiped out by hunting.Never said that they native either.They said they were eradicated by hunting.Now if you call somone going into a large park and shooting over a period of years 2 dozen proably semi tame deer as hunting......

If they are that knowledgeable they wouldnt be asserting somthing that some basic research would prove to be a patent untruth,or going on unsubstantiated reports that european hares are being released here.Proof please!It is the first thing any fellow scientist would ask on any theory or assertion.

So that is a good thing they were wiped out by hunters?????

That sounds really great...just what we need for our PR :rolleyes:
Hmm ,ever considerd the ICABS & Co have been bleating on about Hare numbers declining in Ireland courtsey of Coursers,hunters and God alone knows whatever else evilll fieldsports?Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that they have been using the NI hare coursing ban and the scentific research to "prove" that the entire Irish species[they dont specify which one] is under threat???

Read the article again and read the anti websites and you will get it.:)

Not to mind that this is an NI report,so I would find it's revelance to down here questionable.Considering NI has totally different terrain,farming methods [the most likely cause of it's demise] than the Republic.not to mind that in the early 90s I hardly ever saw a hare here[Clare/Limerick area].Now I have never seen so many this year.

It is a play on words.You and I would know better,but Joe & Jane Shmoe reading this would think "oh the nasty hunters exterminated another race of poor little Bambi here in Ireland!":rolleyes:

MICHAEL VINEY

ANOTHER LIFE: 'I AM CONVINCED," wrote Dr James Fairley, emeritus professor of zoology at NUI, in a recent book, "that the number of people who can be depended upon to distinguish brown and Irish hares in the field is extremely few. This raises the hoary question of whether there have, in fact, been any brown hares in Ireland at all for many years."
Since then, he has had to weigh evidence from scientists in his native Belfast that more than half the hares in mid-Ulster are, in fact, of the European species. They may number up to 2,000, and have other relatives in west Tyrone. This presumes, of course, that the few who could tell one species of hare from another included those behind the spotlights on pick-up trucks that dazzled the Ulster countryside a few autumns ago. They were assessing hare abundance by "nocturnal distance sampling" in a project for the north's Environment and Heritage Service.
Results from the intensive driveabouts in 2005 suggested that, after long decline, Ulster's hare numbers may have "stabilised at relatively low densities". But the share of brown hares frozen in the spotlights has since prompted alarm. Introduced to Ireland well over a century ago, and long thought negligible in survival, they are now regarded for the first time as an invasive, competitive species.
"Our concern," says Dr Neil Reid of Queen's University Belfast, lead researcher in the hare project, "is that if the current situation is left unchecked, in 25 years' time we could be talking about European and Irish hares, rather than grey and red squirrels." Given climate change and its likely impacts on Irish farming, he suggests, the brown hare's naturalisation "may pose a significant risk to the ecological security and genetic integrity of the Irish hare."
A worried Ulster Wildlife Trust has set up an expert committee on what to do about it. But Dr Reid and Prof Ian Montgomery, the QUB head of animal ecology, seem to have small doubt. In a paper published by the Royal Irish Academy, they look back to Ireland's eradication of muskrats and roe deer during the early 20th century. "Immediate action," they advise, " is often the only opportunity for cost-effective eradication." They urge more research to see if this is warranted by the risk to the Irish hare, Lepus timidus hibernicus.
How do you tell Lepus europaeus from the native Irish animal? The big difference at a distance is the brown hare's exceptionally long ears: the Irish hare's Arctic genes keep its ears shorter, to save losing heat, and its head is smaller and rounder. Both hares are mainly brown and much the same size, but the "invader" is a sandy-brown while the native species is more often a rich russet (and sometimes almost black).
The European hare is a lowland species native to a central swathe of continental Europe, but its historical value for food and skins has spread it far beyond, to North and South America, Australasia and even the Falklands. It was introduced to Britain before the Romans, but remained absent from Ireland until the mid-19th century, when it was brought in for hare coursing. Most of the imported populations died out after some years, certainly in the south, and while reports of modern sightings have persisted in the north, there were only two scientifically acceptable reports of brown hares, in Tyrone and east Donegal, as late as 2000.
In Britain and elsewhere, mountain hares and brown hares usually keep to habitats separated by altitude: in parts of Scotland, even a mountain fence could separate them. In Ireland, the native hare was long considered an island subspecies of mountain hare that had adapted to living at every altitude, right down to the shore. Today, genetics stake its claim as a full species. But its lowland feeding overlaps with the normal range of the brown hare, which brings the two species into competition. There has also been hybridisation, which might explain the so-called "thrush" hares, with longer ears and speckled coats, known to coursing clubs around Strabane.
The dominance of the Irish hare may have held back the survival and spread of the brown hare over the last 100 to 150 years, but its numbers in Ulster may now have reached a critical mass ecologically. There are also the "unconfirmed reports," mentioned by Dr Tom Hayden and Dr Rory Harrington, in their 2000 book Exploring Irish Mammals, "that brown hares from Britain or Europe are still being released in Ireland in small numbers".
Prediction models have suggested warmer and drier summers for Ireland (oh yes?) with more arable farming that would favour the brown hare.
The Irish hare may yet take to the hills, but "extinction by hybridisation" is the risk that most concerns Reid and Montgomery. There have been observations, they report ominously, "of Irish and brown hares sparring and boxing during the peak mating season".
Meanwhile, Dr Reid is eager for brown hare reports from anywhere in Ireland (e-mail neil.reid@qub.ac.uk)
© 2008 The Irish Times

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

According to the article ..ONE neighbour. In the 1890s .Plus roe are known to travel good distances,and what exactly is the definition of pest in those days and today?

Hmmm you might want to reset a few traps down here then.Some claim that there is stil a pouplation of them on the lwr Shannon..Although I personally think it is mistaken ID of mink.As they would still breed well enough in that time span.

Your first statement is a contradiction in terms! Nor does the article give an exact number in the district.It says that they travelled up to 30 miles from the estate and the estates capacity had exceeded it's capability.
Maybe we are at cross terms with defination of Park deer.I am using that in a European context.In which any deer that is brought up and tended,and set free on an estate,etc,be it walled or otherwise enclosed,even if the walls collapsed years ago. are classified as Park deer.

Except it sounds very unsceintific!Same as saying I know somone murderd Person A,and I have seen the body.But I cant testify in court that Person B did it,because I didnt see them do it.,but I know they did it cos they talked about doing it.Heresay evidence!Very weak legal arguement in law.Going and saying there are "unconfirmed reports" of brown hare releases doesnt sound good.Either there is or there isnt! I seem to recall on the Muntjac thread here some other woman scientist claimed that it was hunters that released them for somthing to shoot,in some local Wford and national paper!Kind of on the record then isnt it?

Well then shouldnt we have exterminated sika,fallow ,pheasents,magpies,mink,natterjack toads,poision ivy[deffo!] and rhotodendron bushes,and anything else that isnt a native species to Ireland???How long does a species have to be here before it is considerd "native"???

Indeed ,and I have no arguement there..I am stating that ICABS&Co are using these reports or exerpts taken out of context to further their own aims .

Well,read their website and draw your own conclusions how this is being[mis]used.:rolleyes:

And how much will this cost????Both financially and emotively??You can be assured wether trained experts,hunters or men from Mars do it,the antis wil have a field day on this?:(

Well, consider that anything like this usually blows up in hunters faces,wether we are involved or not.:rolleyes: So maybe some paranoia is in order.