Should we re-introduce wolves to Ireland?

begsbyOnaTrain

The Greens want to reintroduce wolves but the current government aren't having any of it.

Other countries have in tandem with re-widling areas. Should we?

The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has poured cold water on calls to reintroduce wolves to Ireland.

The leader of the Green Party, Eamon Ryan, had called for the reintroduction of the predator to help rewild parts of the countryside.

The last wolf in Ireland was killed near Mount Leinster in 1786.

Mr Ryan said their reintroduction would create a real sense of wilderness and help develop more resilient woodlands.

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2019/1001/1079433-wolves/

ted1

begsbyOnaTrain wrote: »

The Greens want to reintroduce wolves but the current government aren't having any of it.

Other countries have in tandem with re-widling areas. Should we?



https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2019/1001/1079433-wolves/

Our country is fairly small , with the lowest density of forests in Europe. We have one off housing everywhere. I can’t see how they could live their life without interacting with humans or farm animals on a daily basis

Ubbquittious

We can't look after what we have. Every square inch is exploited for farming or commercial sitka spruce growing. That will have to be changed first.

Be a bit of a nuisance if a wolf comes into my tent at night. Will have to drag the shotgun along with me on every hill walk.

cruizer101

Nope, in theory I would like to see them and they would control deer numbers to a certain extent but we just don't have the proper wilderness for it, Ireland really is a small place.

Imagine the sh1tstorm when one of them kills someone

Birdnuts

No - the reasons for their extinction have not been addressed and are unlikely to be in our lifetimes. Basically our current style of livestock husbandry does not lend itself to their return. In other countries which have a large wolf population like Turkey,Romania, Spain etc. they have professionsal shepards and large breed herd guarding dogs which make co-existinence possible.

HorrorScope

Absolutely not, what kind of short sighted dickhead would even suggest this? There is nowhere suitable for them and they’d be less than a month before livestock, a pet or even a human would end up being mauled by them.

Edit: Just noticed the dickhead is none other than Eamon Ryan, should have guessed.

NaFirinne

Surely this is a joke?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Besides not having sufficient space for them, unlike smaller European counties being an island limits their range, we don't have enough prey for them. Any reasonable, or viable pack, would have the deer culled below sustainable levels in just a few years. This has been studied and modelled for years: it is just not feasible.

is_that_so

Here's a piece on the Yellowstone reintroduction but they have an enormous ecosystem.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem

The Nal

The Greens are really bored aren't they?

Should we introduce large bears and Siberian Tigers to Ireland?

HorrorScope

The Nal wrote: »

The Greens are really bored aren't they?

Should we introduce large bears and Siberian Tigers to Ireland?

Of course they are bored, there hasn’t been a single Green Party idea that isn’t so stupidly thought out and absolutely ****brained that it doesn’t deserve a facepalm with a handful of ****.

Gunmonkey

No need, if you need to control deer numbers just go into one of the scummier areas of the country and tell them the deer are "startin on ya"....will have dozens of deer with their heads kicked in outside chippers up and down the country in minutes.

Deleted User wrote: »

Imagine the sh1tstorm when one of them kills someone

But wont they count as an immigrant as not native to the country, so the Gov/Media will just sweep it under the rug and tell us of all the great doctor and engineer wolves that have come to Ireland.

Beechwoodspark

Yes we should reintroduce them.

There should be a wild corridor stretching from Wicklow to cork and another one in donegal and the north west. Think of the tourism opportunities as well as the environmental and ecological bonus.

gifted

The dope who suggested this is really living in a different world.....was he drunk?......honest to God...

HorrorScope

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Yes we should reintroduce them.

There should be a wild corridor stretching from Wicklow to cork and another one in donegal and the north west. Think of the tourism opportunities as well as the environmental and ecological bonus.

What benefits or bonuses are there to introducing a wild murderous animal to this country? I’m genuinely interested in what you see as plus points to this.

_Brian

Is this a move to reduce the homeless issue??, pretty bad form of it is.

Leg End Reject

Large birds of prey are killed here, the reintroduction of wolves would just bring out all the Yosemite Sam yokels.

The Tetrarch

Only if we put out Green Party members as prey.

Birdnuts

HorrorScope wrote: »

What benefits or bonuses are there to introducing a wild murderous animal to this country? I’m genuinely interested in what you see as plus points to this.

Murderous?? - lets not turn this into a silly Disney view of nature debate. Yes tourists pay to see bears and wolves in places like Spain and Romania and they do naturally cull the likes of deer,foxes etc.;. But as i stated earlier in the thread our farming, planning etc. system is not set-up for such large predators and therefore the proposal is nonsensical and silly. Basically standard Green Party empty virtue signalling to their smug D4 base

corner of hells

The Tetrarch wrote: »

Only if we put out Green Party members as prey.

The wolves probably wouldn't be bothered eating them.

Wibbs

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Yes we should reintroduce them.

There should be a wild corridor stretching from Wicklow to cork and another one in donegal and the north west.

This is mindnumbingly daft an idea and shows a complete lack of even basic knowledge of how wolves operate. Take the reintroduction to Yellowstone in the US. Went great. Massive wild area surrounded by mostly wild areas. Yet soon enough the Yellowstone wolves were on the move beyond the park ranges. That's what wolves do, they travel. Introduce a few animals, they'll get busy with each other, raise their kids and when the kids reach maturity they leave home and go a wandering to set up their own families. Unless you propose to erect a 14 foot high fence(that also goes 6 foot underground) around your wild corridor they won't stay in that corridor for long. By the by wolves can cover 50 miles per day.

We simply don't have the wild spaces. Go to Spain in the areas where wolves are. They're in tiny numbers and rare in the landscape, but unlike Ireland Spain is far more urban centralised with way larger wild or very close to wild areas. We have absolutely tiny areas of native and natural forest by comparison. Sterile pine tree plantations in the Wicklow mountains don't cover it.

Would they attack humans? Highly unlikely. Attacks on humans are incredibly rare throughout history. In a few cases it was down to dog/wolf hybrids, or rabid animals(except funny enough for the Irish version who were larger and attacked people on the regular, though they were also sometimes kept as pets so...). Their usual MO is to run away. Goes double for the European subspecies which would be the ones introduced here, who have adapted to human proximity and hunting for thousands of years. If an attack were to happen it would be more likely in the modern Irish landscape where cover would be low and the chances of being cornered by people more likely.

jmayo

begsbyOnaTrain wrote: »

The Greens want to reintroduce wolves but the current government aren't having any of it.

Other countries have in tandem with re-widling areas. Should we?

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2019/1001/1079433-wolves/

Ah FFS...
Look at the issues where wolves have been reintroduced into say Yellowstone.
Yeah that would be Yellowstone National Park that is a protected area that has a size bigger than (Mayo + Sligo + Leitrim) or (Wicklow + Wexford + Kilkenny + Carlow + Laois).

Do you have to seriously ask this question ?

HorrorScope wrote: »

Absolutely not, what kind of short sighted dickhead would even suggest this? There is nowhere suitable for them and they’d be less than a month before livestock, a pet or even a human would end up being mauled by them.

Edit: Just noticed the dickhead is none other than Eamon Ryan, should have guessed.

What a Grade A plonker.

How the fook is anyone supposed to take anything he says seriously when he dreams up bat sh*t ideas like this. :rolleyes:

Supercell

Lets reintroduce bears while we are at it, sure what could go wrong?

Wibbs

Ireland would be better served if those dribbling fcuknuggets in the Greens suggested a concerted effort at rewilding larger areas back to native forest. That would be a good idea on so many levels. As it stands the suggestion of introducing wolves to Ireland is akin to suggesting introducing goldfish to a dry aquarium. Same goes for any large animal species.

HorrorScope

jmayo wrote: »

What a Grade A plonker.

How the fook is anyone supposed to take anything he says seriously when he dreams up bat sh*t ideas like this. :rolleyes:

Shouldn’t need to be said but he’s a Dublin centric, cyclist eco warrior. Why wouldn’t he want to introduce wolves to Ireland when he won’t have to encounter them in his leafy D4 neighborhood? Like every single GP thought or policy, it isn’t worth even wasting brain energy on because it’s ****ing idiotic in the extreme.

aerburdz

Yes we should reintroduce the grey wolf to Ireland.

Preferably the Killarney National Park or the Wicklow Mountains National Park, as they would be adequate and suitable locations for them, especially in packs. Wide open space etc.

Birdnuts

Wibbs wrote: »

Ireland would be better served if those dribbling fcuknuggets in the Greens suggested a concerted effort at rewilding larger areas back to native forest. That would be a good idea on so many levels. As it stands the suggestion of introducing wolves to Ireland is akin to suggesting introducing goldfish to a dry aquarium. Same goes for any large animal species.

That nails it

Wibbs

HorrorScope wrote: »

Shouldn’t need to be said but he’s a Dublin centric, cyclist eco warrior. Why wouldn’t he want to introduce wolves to Ireland when he won’t have to encounter them in his leafy D4 neighborhood?

Though... Hmmmm.... Hang on HS, that's the beauty of wolves, if leafy D4 had enough fancy leftovers in bins the oul wolves wouldn't be long in making their way there. Eat his cat and labradoodle while they were at it. Think urban foxes only much bigger.

Wolf in Blackrock. Earlier, Checking out the bins at the "authentic Organic free range chipper".

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

aerburdz wrote: »

Yes we should reintroduce the grey wolf to Ireland.

Preferably the Killarney National Park or the Wicklow Mountains National Park, as they would be adequate and suitable locations for them, especially in packs. Wide open space etc.

Those locations are neither adequate nor suitable and not nearly wide open enough.

Do you really know those parks? And, do you understand the life style or requirements of the Wolf?

Birdnuts

aerburdz wrote: »

Yes we should reintroduce the grey wolf to Ireland.

Preferably the Killarney National Park or the Wicklow Mountains National Park, as they would be adequate and suitable locations for them, especially in packs. Wide open space etc.

The former is being steadily destroyed by Rhodendron invasion which state agencies concerned have done FA about.