Do you fancy visiting the Sonairte Ecology Centre in Laytown
, County Meath in the near future. Well you can’t.
The centre, which was established in 1986 by members of the
local community and concerned environmentalists to promote environmental
awareness and education promotes ecological awareness and sustainable living posted this message on Facebook:
“For the avoidance of any doubt, Sonairte "in its
entirety" will be closed to the Public from 5pm this Friday 25th August.
This includes all Tenants, which includes The Sunflower Cafe, who after 5pm on
Friday will no longer have access to the Centre. After this point, the Centre
will be solely "Private Property" and trespassers will be prosecuted.
We appreciate the public’s support at this difficult time. Thank you Sonairte”
Short and to the point, the centre didn’t go into any more
details about the sudden closure. It is speculated that spiralling insurance
costs have something to do with the decision to close, rising from under
€10,000 to over €30,000 in the space of a year.
The ecology centre was a busy place with training courses,
school visits, monthly craft markets selling produce from their 10 acre
gardens, nature trail and river walks along with a craft shop were just some of
their biggest attraction. The centre will still sell it’s produce but you’ll
need to go to the local shops for it as the gates are staying firmly shut for
the time being until the matter has been resolved.
Splat
As I am in the mood for a bit of news, have you heard about
the “Windscreen Phenomenon? It’s been reported that there are far fewer
squashed insects on your car windscreens a compared to life in the 1970’s.
Flies, gnats, hoverflies, beetles and wasps all seem to be in fewer numbers.
Even driving at night people have commented they see far fewer moths diving
into the headlight beams.
Some people are blaming the reduction in insects on
insecticide use with intensive farming. Since 2006, beekeepers have lost about
a third of their managed bee colonies each year largely due to the loss of
flower-rich grassland which has declined by 97 per cent from the 1930’s.
Rothamsted Research has also monitored insect populations
using traps for more than 50 years. Chris Shortall, an entomologist from
Rothamsted said they had found evidence that the number of flying insects is
falling, but said ‘the windscreen phenomenon’ was difficult to prove.
“The loss of insects from our windscreens is a well-noted
anecdote, however actually demonstrating it is very tricky, if not impossible”
In 2004 the RSPB asked motorists to attach a ‘splatometer’
to the front of their cars - a piece of PVC film to collect insects, to see if
they were declining. They recorded 324,814 ‘splats’, an average of only one
squashed insect every five miles.
However the survey was only carried out once so it was
impossible to see whether bug numbers had fallen over time. It will become more
apparent in the near future if we see the decline in animals that depend on
these insects for nutrition in the food chain. It’s estimated we have only
identified about one quarter of the insect species on the planet
I doubt it as I think fewer insects hit the windscreens now
than in the past. Cars have changed
shape over time, and are now far more aerodynamic with steeper angled glass,
meaning fewer insects are hit. They just get caught in the updraft and fly over
the top of the roof.
Just to add, I think I have done my fair share of ‘bug
cleaning’ from the car windscreen. As the summer draws to a close and the sleepy,
drunk wasps come out to pester us I’m sure a few people will still think there
are just a few to many insects around still to annoy us.
Ident Groups
There are a couple of insect identification groups in
Ireland. The National Biodiversity Data Centre currently runs two insect
monitoring schemes: the Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, established in 2007
and the all-Ireland Bumblebee Monitoring Scheme, established in 2011.
The Irish Butterfly ‘Red List’ found that, of the 35
resident and regular migrant species of Irish butterfly, one species is now
extinct, six species are threatened with extinction and five species are of
‘Near Threatened’ status. Therefore, 18% of our butterfly species are now under
threat, with another 15% heading in the same direction.
The Centre provides support and training for anyone wishing
to begin to identifying and monitoring these wonderful insects. They will be
expanding the monitoring schemes to cover more insect groups in the near future
as they see the importance of monitoring this vital part of the food chain in a
diverse world.
