Shooting ban ‘may endanger geese’!

November 1982

A leading Wexford wildfowl conservationist has warned that Wexford’s white-fronted geese colony on the North Slob, representing half the world’s population of the species, could actually be threatened by the recently-imposed ban on geese shooting throughout Ireland, rather than being protected by it.

In protest at the decision, Turlough Coffey has resigned from the Irish Wildfowl Conservancy, relinquishing a seat on the National Council as well as his position of Chairman of the Wexford branch.

Mr Coffey is an active conservationist but believes that a total ban is unnecessary. He says the irony of the decision, in his view, is that it will do more harm than good, particularly in Wexford, the home of more than six thousand geese.

He says that only one hundred and twenty geese are shot on the Slobs each year. And the people who shoot are keen conservationists. As well as shooting the geese, they also feed them and look after them in bad weather.

‘If no-one is shooting geese now, then no-one will be feeding them either,’ said Mr Coffey this week, pointing out that geese need their food supplemented in harsh weather such as last winter’s blizzard.

He added: ‘Wexford’s population of the Greenland White-Fronted Goose remained stable since counting began, due to a policy of conservation which involved an organised shoot every fortnight during the season’.

Mr Coffey this week called on all conservationists to resign from the Irish Wildbird Conservancy while it has an anti-shooting policy, and hinted at a new organisation when he claimed there is a dire need for a wildfowlers association in this country.

‘It would represent people with a genuine interest in conservation,’ he said.