M20 to become country’s first owl-friendly motorway

THE planned new €800 million M20 will become the first motorway in Ireland to be barn owl-friendly.

The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) has discovered that large numbers of the protected species are being killed on elevated sections of Irish motorways which have grass embankments.

Dr Jer Good of the NPWS told a Bord Pleanála oral hearing into the planned 80km Cork-Limerick motorway yesterday that lightly-built owls swooping to catch field mice and moles on the grass banks were often casualties of the suction caused in the wake of passing lorries.