Wildlife unit needed

COLM McGuirk’s article on the multiple threats to our wonderful wildlife hertitage made for grim reading. (Irish Mail on Sunday, February 18). But it isn’t just poorly implemented environmental measures that threaten the future of all those Irish species, endangered or otherwise.

There can be no excuse for the Government backtracking on commitments to set up a fullyfunded, trained, and adequately staffed Wildlife Crime Unit to crack down on those who wreak havoc on our ostensibly protected wild species and habitats.

There’s a daily all-out attack on a whole range of birds and animals that, on paper, are shielded from harm.

Badgers are taken by gambling gangs to pits where dogs are set on then, resulting in prolonged pain and suffering followed by death. Other ‘sportsmen’ roam the countryside with lurchers or assorted mongrel breeds and place bets on how many hares they can kill.

Though deer-hunting with hounds was banned in 2010, packs can still be seen in some areas, with masked men on horseback riding behind them.

The legality of hare coursing and fox hunting also doesn’t help efforts to tackle wildlife crime. It signals that the political establishment sees nothing wrong with terrorising and killing wildlife for fun, and this right in the middle of a biodiversity crisis!

The establishment of a body dedicated to tackling this attack on our precious native fauna, and the ravaging of habitats that are among the most poorly preserved in Europe, would represent an enormous step forward for Irish wildlife conservation.

John Fitzgerald,

➤➤A POP icon, dazzlingly gifted writer and the biggest-selling recording artist in the world, Taylor Swift, left, is also prized among liberal Americans as a potential saviour of democracy. Yet broadcaster Eamonn Holmes is unimpressed. ‘She is a bitter woman,’ he fumes. ‘I wouldn’t like to have dated her. She’s had quite a few boyfriends and she isn’t very successful at holding onto them and the inevitable is that she writes a song and s***s them off in it.’ Hate to break it to Mr Holmes but with A-listers Harry Styles and Jake Gyllenhall among TayTay’s castoffs, there’s no chance of a two-bit chat show host being admitted to that gilded circle.