Thanks to us, the natterjack still has plenty to talk about

ANOTHER LIFE:GIVEN THE TIMES that are in it, I have been waiting for the first suggestions that spending money on nature conservation is something Ireland can no longer afford.

Some may think that every euro now spent on wildlife, still less that abstract-sounding thing “biodiversity”, should surely be diverted to human priorities. Nature can look after itself, and if the EU wants things differently it can jolly well put up the money.

Not, of course, that any such thoughts were intended by a brief report in this newspaper on Tuesday about expenditure approved by Minister for Heritage Jimmy Deenihan. Use of the Freedom of Information Act (no less) had established that €56,413 is being spent on conservation of the natterjack toad and €54,000 on the first national survey of the marsh fritillary butterfly, Ireland’s only protected insect.

The report offered no explanation of what the natterjack money is spent on. In 2009 I described the project whereby farmers on the north of the Dingle Peninsula, in Co Kerry, are being paid to look after a new network of small, shallow ponds in their coastal pastures in which the natterjack toads – Ireland’s only toad – can be induced to breed. There are now 90 of these ponds, less than a metre deep and 15 metres across, and an annual €500 for five years pays for keeping them free of reeds by hand, controlling grazing around them to keep the grass short, and care of any nearby drystone walls in which the warmth-loving natterjacks like to hibernate.

After two bitter winters that must have hit their numbers, the one just ended could have come to the rescue. Next month’s evening chorus of the rolling, rattling calls that are the natterjack’s mating speciality should signal the success of the toads’ return to many of their historic strongholds. Under a scheme introduced last year, Sweeney Consultancy will monitor the ponds from April to June, visiting every eight to 10 days, recording spawn, tadpoles and toadlets, as well as pond maintenance.

Why do the natterjacks matter? Are they even properly Irish or just another accidental import? First found around sandy Castlemaine Harbour, on the Dingle Peninsula, in 1805, they were long supposed to have been dumped out in sand ballast by boats trading with Spain. Today’s DNA research, however, suggests that the toads got to Kerry under their own steam. They have a strong genetic affinity with the natterjacks of northwest England, supporting the idea that they must have crossed a land bridge to Ireland about 10,000 years ago and found refuge in the mild climate of southwest Ireland. That makes them a whole lot more native than, say, red deer, hedgehogs, red squirrels or even, quite possibly, the frog.

In recent times, to quote Dr John Kelly Korky, an American herpetologist hooked on Ireland’s natterjacks, “Drainage projects, marine incursions, aquatic insect predation, fungal chytridiomycosis, precipitation fluctuations, eutrophication, acid rain, increased ultraviolet exposure, inbreeding, and synergistic effects of all factors have resulted in local extinctions.”

With climate change, rising sea levels could add new threats to sites that today seem secure. No wonder, one might think, the species is called Bufo calamita.

Dr Trevor Beebee of Sussex University, the UK’s leading expert on the toads, has been active in framing Ireland’s conservation plans since the 1980s, when, after serious decline, the concern was about golf-course development in Kerry’s dune systems. It was his advice that prompted the creation of the new breeding ponds by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Their success will inform the next report on the species, as required by article 17 of the EU habitats directive.

This directive, founded in 1992 and much consolidated since, is the cornerstone of Europe’s nature-conservation policy and the Natura 2000 network of conservation areas. Without its ecological prescriptions and sanctions, who can doubt that the Irish countryside, its wildlife and biodiversity would all have been at huge risk from official indifference and commercial opportunism? As a profession, ecological consultancy did indeed benefit enormously from the EU-framed impact assessments of the boom years of construction; it is now on lean times.

Is €54,000 too much for a national survey of the marsh fritillary butterfly, with its widely scattered and fragmented colonies from blanket bogs to coastal dunes, and presence for 10 months of the year as mere webs of hidden eggs, or little black caterpillars, on one particular kind of plant? The marsh fritillary has declined throughout Europe to the point where Ireland and Britain are regarded as its strongest refuges. The natterjack toad, still plentiful in central and southern Europe, is increasingly rare and under threat farther north and already lost from many coastal meadows of the Baltic. Its decline is part of a global decline in amphibian species.

There have been sneers about snails – and, yes, narks about natterjacks. Are we to go down the list of conservation projects, questioning each one for its worth or aesthetic appeal?

Eye on nature

In mid-February, on the motorway from Waterford round near Hugginstown, I saw five or six herons (corra réisc) circling the tops of pine trees. Were they nest-building?Rosemary Ryan, Tuitestown, Co Kilkenny

It could have been a heronry or just a roost. They were circling before roosting.

While I was clearing dead leaves off my strawberry bed, a worm appeared, about 12cm in length and 5mm wide, bluey-grey, pale at both ends. It had a pink swollen patch in the centre. Is it one of the worms that kill earthworms?Elizabeth Hicks, Schull, Co Cork

The worm was Octolasion cyaneum, of the lumbricid family, of which Lumbricus terrestris is the best-known earthworm. It is a valuable member of soil fauna.

While clearing grass around a very rotten pine stump, I noticed what I first thought was a curled-up slug. It was the colour of dark chocolate, and when I touched it, it was hard. Then I noticed many others, ranging in size from 2.5cm to 8-10cm across. Was it a fungus?Conor Sheehan, Limerick

It sounds like a fungus called King Alfred’s cakes or cramp balls, Daldinia concentrica, which is more usually found on ash.

Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo, or via email at viney@anu.ie. Please include a postal address