A sad symptom: Killarney deer cull

The relationship between humanity and the wildlife with which we share the world was never seamless.

Relentless human population growth and accelerating habitat destruction, and the destruction by human actions of animals’ food sources, has made that relationship even more fraught.

The death by starvation of a number of sika deer — an introduced species — on Inisfallen in Killarney National Park, Co Kerry, is yet another indication of what happens when we pretend that we do not have an obligation to manage the consequences of our unbalancing of the natural world.

That laissez-faire neglect means another 27 deer had to be culled on the island. That neglect is also manifested in the near-plague numbers of cormorants on Killarney’s lakes.

These birds, refugees from our emptying seas, have a disastrous impact on fish stocks — already under threat from so many quarters.

It is more than ironic, and threatening to some species, that our well-intentioned attitude to wildlife may in fact achieve the direct opposite of what we intend. It is time to recognise all of our obligations to all wildlife.