Pádraic Fogarty not crying wolf as he warns that we are wrecking our landscape

The lesson I take from ‘Whittled Away’ is to make this country a hostile environment for politicians of every hue who fail to protect our environment, writes Victoria White

B ring back the wolf! That’s the most eye-catching message in Pádraic Fogarty’s hugely important new book on the collapse of the natural environment in Ireland, Whittled Away.

Fogarty’s argument for the return of the wolf to Ireland is compelling: Wolves are a so-called ‘top predator’ and ecosystems need them. Ireland is one of the few countries on earth with no ‘top predators’ and we are paying for this with an explosion in the numbers of other animals, such as deer and foxes. Both of these animals impact heavily on farmers, arguably far more so than would a few wolves.