Coastal and island locations in and off Donegal, Mayo and Galway will be involved in the Government’s new €5.9m EU-funded LIFE project aimed at saving the corncrake.
The project, which is overseen by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, was launched in Gort a Choirce in Co Donegal on Friday (25 March) by two junior ministers.
Malcolm Noonan, Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, and Pippa Hackett, Minister of State with responsibility for land use and biodiversity at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, say the initiative aims to revive the fortunes of the corncrake and ensure it remains a part of rural landscapes for years to come.
The Corncrake LIFE team will work over a five-year period with farmers and landowners to “improve the landscape for the highly endangered bird”, they say.
The corncrake is listed for special protection under Annex 1 of the EU Birds Directive, and has declined by 85% since the 1970s.
It is now effectively “confined” to Connacht and Donegal, including islands, and only 188 calling male corncrakes were recorded across Ireland in 2021.
Measures in the new project will include “creating and maintaining areas of early and late cover, wildlife-friendly mowing of grass, provision of refuge areas during meadow harvesting and incentivising later cutting dates”, they say, and they aim to have secured a 20% increase on the 2018 population of the corncrake recorded in Ireland by 2027.
Innovations such as flushing bars fitted to tractors to scare birds away from mowers, thermal imaging drones to find nests and passive acoustic monitoring using high-tech microphones in an attempt to help locate the highly elusive birds will be explored.
Locally based field officers will provide guidance, direction and support to landowners, while community engagement officers will work with stakeholders to establish the corncrake as an asset to the areas it frequents, the two junior ministers state.
Corncrakes require managed habitat throughout the breeding season. The birds require the cover of tall vegetation (>20cm) and are strongly associated with meadows which are traditionally harvested once a year in late summer, where they nest and feed.
Annual cutting creates a sward with an open structure, which is easy for the birds to move through, but harvesting means they must find alternative cover adjacent to meadows later in the season, the Department of Housing says.
“Farming therefore plays a key role in the establishment, maintenance and conservation of corncrake habitat,” it adds.
The project is collaborating with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Údarás na Gaeltachta and Fota Wildlife Park.
