Poisoning birds - A minority of farmers shame us all

SPEAKING in Bantry last summer the wonderful American writer Annie Proulx said one of the things that fascinated her about Ireland was trying to understand why West Cork people who emigrated to Wyoming – where she then lived – in the 1850s were so utterly destructive of the environment around them.

She described how they destroyed the open plain by overgrazing and how others destroyed the landscape and rivers by unrestrained mining. She argued that the Irish outdid anything any other emigrant group did in this regard. She wondered what made them – and by association, us – so blind to the world around us.

Yesterday’s discovery of the remains of another poisoned sea eagle brings to 19 the number of reintroduced raptors so lost over the last three years. The male white-tailed sea eagle is the third such bird found dead in Kerry in recent weeks. This brings shame on us all.