ON April 11, European bison were released to the wild in Germany.

THE easterly gales of the last few weeks drove millions of marine creatures ashore.

THE Cypriots are being crucified for their economic sins.

THE claim, made two years ago, that the polar bears alive today had Irish brown bear ancestors has been turned on its head.

LAST month saw the Cheltenham Festival, the election of the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years and the continuing saga of horseflesh sold as beef.

THE mad March hare season has arrived. Courtship for Ireland’s fastest mammal, the real ‘Easter bunny’, is a frantic business. Driven by the scent of females in heat, males chase prospective partners who fob them off in dramatic boxing matches.

THE Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, visited the Falkland Islands in 1834.

ON Feb 18, five sperm whales were seen feeding off the northwest coast of Scotland.

RICHARD the Third, according to Shakespeare, was “not shaped for courtly tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking glass”.

WORLD Wildlife Fund president for Spain, King Juan Carlos, was ‘outed’ early last year for hunting elephants in Botswana.