Eoghan Daltun 🌍
@irishrainforest.bsky.social
46K followers 1.8K following 3.5K posts
Author of award-winning bestseller 'An Irish Atlantic Rainforest'. Over 16 years living with 73 acres of wildland in Beara, West Cork. #Rewilding.
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irishrainforest.bsky.social
After 2 years of work, I've finally taken delivery of an actual printed copy of my second book 'The Magic of an Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey'.

I've done my best to capture the essence of these priceless, but mostly dying, ecosystems, and am over the moon with the results. 🌎
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Few fungi are as iconic as fly agaric, which forms symbiotic mycorrhizal relationships with the roots of birch, oak, and other trees across the northern hemisphere.

It has also been introduced and become invasive in some southern parts of the globe, pushing out native fungi.
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
melis-willis.bsky.social
I wish more people just cared but…Late diagnosed Lyme person here and I wouldn’t wish this disease on a single person. The way it has flipped my entire existence upside down has been downright devastating.
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
sarahwfpb.bsky.social
Lyme disease no thanks.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Don't care about the massive damage done to native ecosystems by the constant release of vast numbers of invasive pheasants for shooting?

Maybe you'll care about catching Lyme disease instead.
britishbirds.bsky.social
Ticks are more likely to carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease in areas where Common Pheasants Phasianus colchicus are released, according to new research.

Read more: britishbirds.co.uk/journal/arti...
🥇Subscriber Content
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
sarmcdonnell.bsky.social
Good grief, a very good point indeed! Nobody wants to have Lymes!! It’s an awful, almost indectable, incurable if diagnosed too late sickness.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Don't care about the massive damage done to native ecosystems by the constant release of vast numbers of invasive pheasants for shooting?

Maybe you'll care about catching Lyme disease instead.
britishbirds.bsky.social
Ticks are more likely to carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease in areas where Common Pheasants Phasianus colchicus are released, according to new research.

Read more: britishbirds.co.uk/journal/arti...
🥇Subscriber Content
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
rafaelmelchor.bsky.social
Yet another compelling argument, rather than for the selective culling of foxes but preferably for the reintroduction of the lynx then, surely? 🌱🕊️
irishrainforest.bsky.social
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Far too many fox (according to one estimate I heard, around 20x the natural level) impact across ecosystems, for example on native ground-nesting birds.

The mass release of pheasants for shooting is an utter disaster for native ecosystems, and should be banned NOW.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
1. 'Mesopredator release': ie fact that all the larger predators that would naturally control them, like wolves and lynx, are missing.

2. Abundant artificial sources of food, like uneaten spilled sheep nuts, sheep carcasses/afterbirth on the hills, and pheasants.
petchary.bsky.social
Why are there too many foxes?
irishrainforest.bsky.social
1. 'Mesopredator release': ie fact that all the larger predators that would naturally control them, like wolves and lynx, are missing.

2. Abundant artificial sources of food, like uneaten spilled sheep nuts, sheep carcasses/afterbirth on the hills, and pheasants.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Far too many fox (according to one estimate I heard, around 20x the natural level) impact across ecosystems, for example on native ground-nesting birds.

The mass release of pheasants for shooting is an utter disaster for native ecosystems, and should be banned NOW.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
I came across what looks to me like a bunch of pheasant feathers on the woodland floor, indicating a kill.

Since these are invasive predators of native wildlife, in one sense, that's great.

But it's also a major contributor to the highly damaging artificially high densities of species like fox.
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
freedomtodoubt.bsky.social
Fake 'nature' exists all over these isles w many unaware how devastating it is 4 our flora & fauna. 60% of land in UK contain mostly alien plants; the "English Garden" is full of .. non-English plants; 87% households w gardens in 2021 expected to spend £6.5 billion on more non-native plants by 25.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
If you love what's left of our native forests, maybe you shouldn't like the things that are killing them off, like invasive species.
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
lesleymath.bsky.social
In Southern California there is a time of year where the hills are covered in yellow flowers and look gorgeous... except it's all invasive black mustard and driving out everything else. It's terrible for the ecosystem and increases the danger of fires.
A hillside covered in yellow flowers.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Always such a wonderful pleasure to get a visit from Julian and Jill Friers!

For anyone not in the know, Julian is the best Irish painter of wildlife, at least in my book: julianfriers.com
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍
freedomtodoubt.bsky.social
We who claim to care about the planet, must care about the people too.
Please sign!
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Yes, of course they're living organisms, as are all alien invasive species, which are the second biggest driver of biodiversity loss on the planet.

Oh, and we don't have 250,000 years to reverse nature collapse!
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Who was the Green, out of interest?
irishrainforest.bsky.social
This is not the far side of the Atlantic, but just across the Irish Sea. In fact, some of the worst consequences may well be in the north of our island.

As George says, nothing is inevitable, but right now this seems to be where the UK is heading. It feels very much like the 1930s all over again.
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
No sudden rupture is now required for the far right to take power in this country. For what we're seeing is a steady normalisation of extremists by the Conservative and Labour Parties, BBC, Telegraph, Mail and others. A shift once considered unthinkable beings to look acceptable, even inevitable.🧵
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Today's budget will be business as usual, ie no real barriers to the rich continuing to make vast profits, and no real protection for all those who pay the price: ie everyone else, and the entire natural world.
byhedge.bsky.social
Expectations for nature in today’s Budget?

Mine are about trivial gains at best.

Yours?

@whittledaway.bsky.social
@irishrainforest.bsky.social
@miseanja.bsky.social
@elainemcgoff.bsky.social
irishrainforest.bsky.social
Today's budget will be business as usual, ie no real barriers to the rich continuing to make vast profits, and no real protection for all those who pay the price: ie everyone else, and the entire natural world.
irishrainforest.bsky.social
This scene looks attractive, until you realise that only a single thing – a wild sessile oak to the rear – is native here.

It's fake 'nature', and virtually worthless to wildlife.
Reposted by Eoghan Daltun 🌍