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Should wolves be reintroduced to Ireland?

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Comments

  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,306 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    Fathom wrote: »
    Want wolves? Cause to visit places still natural to them.

    Very true Fathom.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    A wolf , years ago now, ran across the road ahead of me, in remote Kerry. After some inquriies it emerged that a man had permission to keep them BUT not running free... This was many years ago now, before I moved elsewhere. Wonderful sight it was - but the farmers would not allow it of course





  • I can only imagine the posh Dublin visitors to Wicklow (the ones that take the jeeps out in the snow and need rescuing ) crying when they see the wolves rip the deer apart 😂😂



  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7




  • Registered Users Posts: 8,589 ✭✭✭corks finest


    They never left, currently residing in Leinster HSE,blue variant v dangerous, especially the she wolf in charge of the pack



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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    On the continent, people co exist with wolves, wild boar, bears even.

    Here, apart from tiny isolated scraps of national park, there is literally nowhere for wolves to go. So unless you rewild vast swathes of land it's completely pointless reintroducing wolves.



  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    How about the smaller uninhabited islands eg West Coast? No idea if wolves can swim well...



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,688 ✭✭✭893bet


    And we drop over food to the island Jurassic park style?


    The level of stupidity in this thread is high and also full of “nimby”. There are a million other things that could be discussed that would be a better use of resources for the environment etc.


    The advantage to this thread though is reminding the average person how **** stupid Eamonn Ryan is.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    A pack of wolves would need a huge territory to hunt , on any offshore Irish island they'd be a zoo animal being fed daily ,

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Yes and without accepting that Ireland, especially rural Ireland, has changed exponientially since wolves were here. Which is why they are no longer here. It would not be safe, for us or for the wolves. Apart from eg Wild Ireland in Donegal..

    Explore Wild Ireland - Wild Ireland | Wildlife Park

    and maybe an uninhabited island, which we still have. Things change and we need to accept that.



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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    We could try a few of these.

    Big enough to take down deer but small enough not to be a serious threat to humans. (Irish wolves of old had a bad reputation compared to others)

    We have a small fraction of the forest cover that the rest of Europe has. And much of it is lifeless commercial conifers rather than the wildlife friendly stuff.



  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7



    Islands have prey. eg hares thrive and breed. One of my cats came home with a headless hare and I am sure he did not kill or decapitate it. And maybe wolves would deal with the mink that some eejit released nearby And even with feeding them at least they are living here, safely. Well worth a try. And like the Wild Ireland venture, a valid venture ...

    The Wolves Return to Ireland - (wildireland.org)



  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Over and out from me on this.

    Far too much negativity ....

    Were I able I would dearly love to visit Wild Ireland. Those folk are doing something very valid and wonderful. And realistic.

    Have a lovely day!!!!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    A pack of Wolves need a fairly large territory , the sparser the prey the larger the territory ,

    You'd need a good few packs to get any genetic diversity, so it couldn't just be introduce a pack into Donegal , you'd prob need minimum 8 or 10 packs throughout the country ,

    There are plenty of deer at the moment as prey ,( if they were avoiding humans and their domesticated animals ) which could lead to a boom in wolf packs , then as the deer and bunnies got scarcer the packs would have to go looking for farmed animals ..

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,205 ✭✭✭cruizer101


    Video on potential of reintroducing lynx into Scotland.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND3GTG52kJA7

    Whilst I like the idea of reintroducing wolves we just don't have the wilderness. There is at times talk of it in Scotland where there have vastly more wilderness than us but even there chances are slim enough. The lynx has more of a chance I would say as its a more solitary creature and far more wary of humans.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭embraer170


    I am really not getting the population / lack of countryside argument. Wolves somehow survive in the Netherlands, Belgium and very industrial and populated North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. There's absolutely no real non farmed wilderness in the Netherlands, NRW and Belgium (red circle in the below image).

    Population density per km2

    NRW: 524 (Germany as a whole: 240)

    Belgium: 383

    The Netherlands: 508

    Ireland: 72

    Country illustration through light population:




  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Ireland is an island , so the population of any wild animal is entirely restricted to Ireland,

    a small population can find a space in Holland or Belgium and not have to stop at border control if they want to head somewhere else ..

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 30,831 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    I've been following Eoghan Daltún on Twitter for about a year now, and while I once would have agreed with the "Nay!" side of this argument, I now have to agree that wolves or other large predators should be part of the solution. Unchecked grazing by deer, sheep, etc in Cork and Kerry is ruining whatever is left of the natural forest environment.

    Much of Connacht could also benefit from gradual re-wilding. I doubt there's massive money in sheep farming in Galway and Mayo, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong if anyone has the data.



  • Registered Users Posts: 342 ✭✭iniscealtra


    There are people everywhere in Ireland and livestock. Could be problematic. Belgiums population is something like 96% urban I believe. Deer are increasing but eating more venison would be a good solution.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭embraer170


    Take a look at the European light pollution map. The Belgian countryside has quite a lot of housing, farms, etc.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 799 ✭✭✭Emblematic


    However there's only sheep grazing on that land because farmers run sheep there. They are not wild sheep that need to be checked by an apex predator. If overgrazing was seen as the problem the sheep would simply be rounded up and removed from the land.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,268 ✭✭✭RetroEncabulator


    We need to focus on stuff we can actually do. Ireland does not have enough habit or prey for those wolves to survive. You’d be condemning them either conflict with humans or starvation.

    What we should be doing is rewilding, letting the flora get back to nature in more areas and limiting sheep and artificially introduced deer from munching their way though all of it.

    Getting our insect and bird populations back to some kind of healthy levels would be a better goal than trying to introduce an apex predator that would just end up facing the extreme struggles.

    This is very much putting the cart before horse stuff! Ireland simply doesn’t have the habits to support them and we are in a far more extreme situation in terms of lack of nature than most of the continent. We are basically just coast to coast managed farm land that is pretty and green looking, but it’s as natural as a golf course, just with a less manicured aesthetic.



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