Comments by Mr. John Sheahan, current chairman of Limerick County Council are being reacted to strongly by the public at home and abroad:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/358/804/673/
http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/council-leader-calls-for-open-season-on-hen-harriers/
The Hen Harrier is an extremely endangered piece of Irish natural heritage. The link between the people and the bird is stronger in Ireland than anywhere else in its range in that we cannot have one without the other. The Hen Harrier in Ireland lives mainly on extensive farmland. When we lose people and local rural communities and when non-native commercial monoculture forestry moves in, the wildlife moves out. The Hen Harrier, as an indicator species, is representative of the overall health of our landscape as if we do not have all the other animals and birds that share the countryside, we will not have Hen Harriers.
Since 2007, the Irish government has operated a scheme rewarding farmers for maintaining and creating Hen Harrier habitat, while farmers in Natura 2000 lands like Hen Harrier Special Protection Areas have been given priority access to the Agri-Environmental Options Scheme.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThat she made shapes in air
That she saw the world as pattern and light
moorland to bare mountain drawn by instinct
That she’d arrive at the corner of your eye
like the ghost of herself going silent into the wind
That the music of her slipstream was a dark flow
whisper-drone tagged to wingtips
That weather was a kind of rapture
That her only dream was of flight forgotten
moment by moment as she dreamed it
That her low drift over heather quartering home ground
might bring anyone to tears
That she would open her prey in all innocence
there being nothing of anger or sorrow in it
That her beauty was prefigured
That her skydance went for nothing
hanging fire on empty air
That her name is meaningless
your mouth empty of it mind empty of it
That the gunshot was another sound amid birdcall
a judder if you had seen it her line of flight broken
That she went miles before she bled out