Seal the deal to end roadkill and renounce rubbish

PERHAPS it’s a sign not just of spring but that we remain stuck in lockdown, that so many people in this country town still wander up the floodplain in the hope of catching sight of Signor Seal, who continues to provide desperately needed diversion.

Indeed, his presence has prompted a physical sign to appear on a gate you pass en route to this little celebrity, two laminated sheets of free verse pinned beneath a photo of said seal. And while it gets the type wrong — the colour of his coat makes it easy to presume he’s a grey seal, when in fact he’s a common seal — its sentiment is spot on, pleading with us to “please, please not send any more plastics and rubbish out to sea, to me”.

This unfortunately falls on deaf ears with some visitors who show their appreciation of this little animal by dumping their rubbish where he lives. Others must pick it up before a breeze blows it into the river to prove the poem’s point, reminding us that plastics may end up at sea — but not before making eyesores out of scenic areas.

As locals going for lockdown walks along a road bordered by virgin forest have undoubtedly noticed, dumped takeaway cups and soft drink bottles providing ample evidence of this parallel pandemic — along with the deeply wrong and sordid sight recently of a red squirrel lying dead among the rubbish, his body still soft when I stopped to move him off the road.

Both of which are a sign that our Government urgently needs to get county councils to work in conjunction with BirdWatch Ireland and the Irish Wildlife Trust, whose independent status and sole agenda of protecting wildlife makes them trustworthy, not to mention their bootson-the-ground passionate grasp of how best to do so. This would enable county councils to continue keeping roads safe, but without sacrificing the little citizens who live beside them.

For councils countrywide have been busy not just widening roads and digging drainage ditches but — most disturbingly — apparently also attempting to turn what’s left of our hedgerows into butchered bonsai. Many have been hacked to pieces.

What we need is less cutting and more cleaning, removing rubbish left on country roads and dumped behind stone walls, some of which has been lying there for decades — and new signs to replace those that threaten nothing more than a stomach ache from laughing at bizarre fines that blatantly cannot be enforced, given that there are no cameras.

Above all, it’s time to follow the example of that seal-loving poet and erect signs at the approach to wooded roads and other areas of wildlife habitat, politely demanding that drivers slow the hell down, setting a speed limit and adding ramps to encourage them to do so.

It shouldn’t be necessary to plead for such measures that involve minuscule investment yet could significantly reduce roadkill and rubbish.

But if it helps seal the deal — please, please.