LAST week the first storm of winter in this part of the world, with the huge gunnera leaves in the garden almost flying off their stalks – they need controlling anyway – and things going bang in the night.

A group of about 80 whales stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could reach them.

AN ECOLOGICAL disaster is on the cards because of tree felling by the state’s forestry company, environmentalists have claimed.

IRELAND’S appalling record on safeguarding endangered wildlife species has come into the spotlight again, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reminding us that key habitats requiring special attention are being neglected by the present government.

CONSERVATION groups have pleaded for action to save the country’s most vulnerable wildlife following a study which shows many animals, plants and habitats are in decline.

THE recent conviction of a Co Westmeath-based coursing club for trapping hares without a licence serves as yet another reminder that our hare population is threatened by a practice that involves netting and baiting these gentle creatures for ‘sport’.

AMID all the weighty wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power aimed at producing a new government, politicians may overlook the plight of a brutally oppressed and voiceless minority.

Experts on avian flu tonight insisted sufficient measures had been put in place to combat the threat of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.