Hare survey - Habitat is the answer

RIGHT around the world habitat depletion – human activity in one form or another – represents the single greatest threat facing wildlife.

Anyone who looks will see that the vast mono-cultures that define modern food production leave little room for many of the birds, animals, plants or insects that once populated these single-crop prairies. This is as much a consequence of economics as agriculture and we all are, to a greater or lesser degree, culpable.

But, as a study by Queen’s University Belfast has shown, there is much we can do to help wildlife.

Dr Neil Reid and Professor Ian Montgomery, head of the school of biological sciences at Queen’s, have established that Irish hares are 18 times more abundant in areas managed by the Irish Coursing Club (ICC) than at similar sites in the wider countryside.

The lesson is simple enough. If wildlife is encouraged by the preservation or establishment of suitable habitat it will thrive. If left to its own devices in our industrialised countryside it will not do as well.