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Irish Wildlife

@treegreenwood

I have been lucky enough to experience elusive otters in Ireland twice so far.  Once at very close and unexpected quarters gliding majestically and silently on the river Laune near Killarney and another time out of my hotel window in the Ice House Hotel in Sligo.

The first time otter swam close roughly 5 metres from me  as I walked along the bank, calmly viewing me before it sank silently amid the tangled mass of submerged tree roots. I was immediately addicted to this elusive mammal and sought to try to view more in the wild.

After another encounter of an otter from my glass panorama of my hotel bed in the Ice House Hotel in Sligo, I was hooked.
When I first started working on the Dodder Otter survey for the IWT Dublin,  our team of volunteers spent hours walking the banks around the bridges  along the Dublin river recording typical signs of otters such as spraint and tracks.

We found definitive evidence of otters amongst us in our urban area. My commitment this time was driven not just by my affinity with this mustelid but by the need to record solid data about their presence on the river. Why did I feel this way?

At the time, a proposed cycle track was being proposed for the Dodder and I quickly realised that our hours spent scouring the banks and soft mud of the river could be used as data in an EIS in relation to a planned cycleway. What we were doing on a volunteer basis could affect a larger scheme of development.

It should be an epiphany for all conservationists, that the passion we have for nature and the data we can collect can be utilised and be part of a collaborative effort to monitor and protect our natural heritage. What we do individually does make a difference. I am inspired by Fergal Ó Cuinneagáin whose one man battle has helped preserve the precarious Corncrake on his farm in Mayo. As Ghandi said, 'Be the change you want to see in the world.'
I now have bought a trail camera and am attempting to record otter activity at known sprainting sites along the Dodder.

I am happy to report that today, I captured my first image of an otter under a famous Dodder bridge. What next for my ongoing search for this beautiful elusive creature? Perhaps,  I will follow the work done by Galway branch IWT in taking samples of spraint and getting genetic analysis done. My great otter adventure is clearly just beginning.
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Your Personal Ecocide

Think you are environmentally aware? ​Are you one of the exceptions who is doing.your bit for the planet? The answer is that even if you think you are, you are actually naive. People are carrying on and increasing their environmentally destructive lifestyles. There’s an end of the world party going on and it is being heavily promoted and cashed in on by industry. 

There is an insidious lie being spun. A shiny sustainable movement unhinged from environmental metrics and spun by marketing companies funded by state agencies which informs us that we are greening our world and by association alleviating our inherent guilt at the destruction of our landbase. 

We love to believe we are making a small difference by using recycled cups in work or posting our social media urges to stop using single use plastic, but the climate reality impact of our flights and tourism impact is neatly ignored by most. 


And we are to blame on an individual level. Where do you think the demand for goods and services created by "business" comes from? Every time we buy anything we're consuming all the energy involved in creating that item and getting it to our doorstep. All the energy involved in "business" is accountable to individuals that value those goods and services. 

No one in this cycle is paying the damages or externalities created by this consumption and production. Corporations have to reduce their production, and people have to reduce their consumption. Everyone has to give up some standard of living or some profits if we're to see this through without major ecocide. We need to stop lying to ourselves that we are actually making any individual contribution.

If their activity has a negative cost externality, such as making pollution for others who are not benefiting from their activity, they should pay a tax on that. It's how a truly free market society should work, taxation on negative externalities.

You the average person think you have made made significant sacrifices in that you pay a lot of money via tax that pays for environmentally friendly things, rather than something else.

The number of people genuinely making conscious lifestyle changes to live "greener" because they care about the environment are still an extremely small minority. The most commonly impactful things are driven by either forced changes (petrol prices, plastic bag taxes, etc) or direct financial incentives (appliance replacement incentives, solar installation incentives, etc).

People can stop buying stuff they don't need, change to a vegetarian/vegan diet (or at least massively reduce the amount of dairy and meat products), reduce energy consumption at home (electric stuff like lights, appliances, energy vampires, turn down heating/climate control) and reduce the amount they travel as far as possible and switch to a more environmental way where possible.

If people stop paying for environmentally disastrous products, businesses will whine and point at all kinds of scapegoats but ultimately, they will stop producing that stuff. Waiting for someone else to fix the problem without a change of lifestyle is just wishful thinking.

Taxation has been very mildly applied to some things that will help a bit, but people need to change their expectations of there being no consequence for their actions if we are going to pull back at all. Which they haven’t, they’ve increased the long haul, short holiday flights and the conspicuous consumption of resources. It’s probably too late, anyway.

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Tweets by @treegreenwood
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Forest Bathing

It starts with a simple idea. If a person visits nature and walks in a relaxed way they become calm and rejuvenated. There are many restorative benefits to be achieved from this one basic action.
 
Shinrin-yoku is a term that means "taking in the forest atmosphere" or "forest bathing." It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine. Researchers primarily in Japan and South Korea have established a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of spending time under the canopy of a living forest. Now their research is helping to establish shinrin-yoku and forest therapy throughout the world.
 
Do you love the idea of full-on sensory immersion in nature during seasonal changes? Try Shinrin-yoku to to increase your communication with the land and its season ebbs and flows.
 
Do you want to feel refreshed and invigorated by nature? Shinrin-yoku will reduce your stress while improving your mood and increasing your energy.
 
You may have known this intuitively, but in the past several decades there have been many scientific studies demonstrating the mechanisms behind the healing effects of simply being in wild and natural areas. One example is how many trees give off organic compounds that support our natural killer (NK) cells that are part of our immune system's way of fighting cancer.
 It starts with a simple idea. If a person visits nature and walks in a relaxed way they become calm and rejuvenated. There are many restorative benefits to be achieved from this one basic action.
 
Shinrin-yoku is a term that means "taking in the forest atmosphere" or "forest bathing." It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine. Researchers primarily in Japan and South Korea have established a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of spending time under the canopy of a living forest. Now their research is helping to establish shinrin-yoku and forest therapy throughout the world.
 
Do you love the idea of full-on sensory immersion in nature during seasonal changes? Try Shinrin-yoku to to increase your communication with the land and its season ebbs and flows.
 
Do you want to feel refreshed and invigorated by nature? Shinrin-yoku will reduce your stress while improving your mood and increasing your energy.
 
You may have known this intuitively, but in the past several decades there have been many scientific studies demonstrating the mechanisms behind the healing effects of simply being in wild and natural areas. One example is how many trees give off organic compounds that support our natural killer (NK) cells that are part of our immune system's way of fighting cancer.
 
What are the benefits of These are the benefits of shinrin-yoku that are scientifically-proven so far:
  • Boosted immune system functioning (such as more NK Cells)
  • Reduced blood pressure
  • Reduced stress
  • Improved mood
  • Increased ability to focus, even in children with ADHD
  • Accelerated recovery from surgery or illness
  • Increased energy level
  • Improved sleep
 
This is an impressive list of benefits that come from simply putting yourself in a natural setting, but even more impressive are the results that we personally are experiencing as we make this part of our daily practice. The accumulated scientific benefits of shinrin-yoku lead to benefits in so many areas of long and vital life, including:
  • Deeper and clearer intuition
  • Increased capacity to communicate with the land and its species
  • Overall increase in sense of happiness
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Are you interested in wildlife and conservation? Come along to our  meetings on the first Tuesday of each month t 7pm in Sweetman's Pub 1-2 Burgh Quay. All Welcome

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Books

This book outlines the history of the rabbit industry in Ireland, especially in the first half of the 20th century (and later) and the impact it made on the people involved.
In Ireland, the rabbit was an important source of meat for hundreds of thousands of Irish families throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th 
centuries. 

​Complete Irish Wildlife describes almost all the mammals, birds, fish and butterflies of Ireland likely to be encountered by the keen amateur naturalist, as well as all the common and widespread flowers, trees and shrubs.
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UK & Eire Natural History Bloggers
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  • Home
  • Otters
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Cetaceans - Whales and Dolphins
    • Basking Shark
  • Mammals
    • Otter
    • Seals
    • Deer
    • Bats
    • Squirrel
    • Fox
    • Rabbits
  • Birds
    • Heron
    • Kingfisher
    • Gullible
    • Great Northern Diver
    • Robin
    • Cock Pheasant
    • Greylag Goose
    • Egret
    • Cormorant
    • Mute Swan
    • Reed Bunting
    • Lough Derg Sea Eagles Video
  • Wild Flowers
    • Wild flowers of Ireland
  • Trees
  • Biodiversity.ie
    • IWT Dublin Branch
    • Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland
  • Animal Tracks
  • Insects
  • Irish Wildlife Fact Sheets
  • Michael Conry Books
  • Home