Monday, August 20, 2007
PEOPLE regularly travelling the roads of Ireland cannot but notice the number of wild animals being run over.
You can scarcely go a mile of any road nowadays without coming across the carcass of a bird, rabbit, rat, hedgehog, fox or badger which has fallen victim to increasing traffic volumes.
The other day, a woman from the Innishannon area of Co Cork phoned to say she had found two badgers dead on the road. She speculated they may have been a mating pair and could possibly have left orphans behind in their sett — the underground tunnel system in which badgers live.
She wondered if there was some agency that could check into the situation. With wild animals freely roaming the countryside, these things can be extremely difficult to trace.
Undoubtedly, there’s massive animal mortality on our roads, something that has never been properly quantified here. A biodiversity group on Clare County Council is making a start by doing a survey to try to find out how many hedgehogs are killed on the county’s roads.
Badgers, being nocturnal and dark in colour, can be difficult for motorists to see. Surveys have been carried out in some countries to determine exactly how many badgers die on the roads.
In Britain, it is estimated that around 45,000 badgers die in this way each year. Badgerwatch Scotland statistics show the figure for their country to be around 2,000, but this is regarded as highly conservative: the real figure could be closer to 5,000, they believe. In the Netherlands, experts say about one-fifth of the badger population is killed on the roads.
Road deaths aside, mortality among badger cubs is extremely high. It is believed up to 50%die of starvation and loss of feeding grounds. The badger is found throughout temperate parts of Europe and Asia. Ireland and England are said have the healthiest populations.
Dr Chris Small’s The Badger and Habitat Survey of Ireland, published in 1995, estimated the population at 200,000 in the Republic with a further 50,000 in Northern Ireland.
In addition to the thousands killed on roads, many more are killed on farms and also by people involved in badger digging and baiting activities.
Controversy continues to surround alleged links between badgers and the spread of TB in cattle. Under licence from Duchas, the Department of Agriculture has legally snared many thousands of badgers, as part of a bovine TB eradication programme which could wipe out around 30% of our native badger population.
In response to a Dáil question from Deputy Tony Gregory regarding the snaring of badgers by the Department, Agriculture Minister Mary Coghlan said there could be up to 6,000 snares laid on farmland on a given night.
She said this was undertaken in areas where serious outbreaks of tuberculosis were identified in cattle herds and where an investigation carried out by the Department’s veterinary inspectorate found that badgers were the "likely source" of infection.
Both the Department and UCD are trying to develop a vaccine for use in badgers that would lead to a reduction in the current high levels of TB infection in the species.
Minister Coughlan added: ‘It is hoped that this strategy will in the long term reduce the need to cull TB infected badgers as tuberculosis levels falls in both cattle and badgers. However, any vaccine will not be available for wider use in the immediate future and the existing strategy will remain in place for some time.
"My department is satisfied that its current badger removal policy is justified and has contributed to the decline in the number of TB reactors and the costs associated with bovine disease.’
Wildlife campaigners strongly dispute this and continue to argue there’s no proven link between badgers and the spread of bovine TB. Badgerwatch also claims the large-scale culling is in breach of the Bern Convention, Europe’s longest-standing wildlife treaty.
Badger setts are easily identified on farms. These long, underground tunnel systems can have anything from three to 10 entrances. The entrances can sometimes be spotted by the presence of old bedding and excavated material outside and are often built into banks.
One sett that was excavated in England contained over 850 metres of tunnel, 50 chambers and 150 entrances. It could have been used by countless generations of badgers, as badgers inherit their setts.
Badgers eat both plants and flesh. Their mainstay of the badgers diet in northern Europe is the earthworm.
Their diet also includes snails, slugs, beetles, rats, mice, young rabbits and even hedgehogs, lizards and frogs, apples, blackberries and cereals.
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