Identification of Breeding Waterbird Hotspots in Ireland

 Identification of Breeding Waterbird Hotspots in Ireland 

National Parks and Wildlife has published a recent study titled ‘Identification of Breeding Waterbird Hotspots in Ireland’ by Alan Lauder & Claire Lauder.

This study aims to identify breeding waterbird hotspots using species distribution data combined with scoring criteria based on aspects of each species’ ecology, conservation status and social value. This provides an initial spatial framework with which to identify the most important sites for breeding waterbirds. In turn, this provides a key tool for planning and prioritising the measures needed to address conservation management challenges associated with restoring favourable conservation status to these species. In particular, the targeted management of wetland sites which provide key refugia from which to conserve and potentially restore populations can be well directed by using this framework.

The populations of breeding waterbirds in Ireland have in almost all cases suffered significant declines. This is particularly significant amongst ground-nesting species. Waders in particular have suffered large scale declines. Species such as Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, Redshank Tringa totanus and particularly, Curlew Numenius arquata, have seen their numbers and range contract over a long period, but particularly rapid declines have been observed since the 1980s (Balmer et al., 2013; Lauder & Donaghy, 2008, O’Donoghue et al., 2019, Suddaby et al., 2020). The Birds of Conservation Concern in Ireland (BoCCI; Colhoun & Cummins, 2013) also documented a wide range of waterbird species moving onto the red and amber lists from formerly more favourable conservation status, including such ubiquitous species as Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus, Snipe Gallinago gallinago and Mute Swan Cygnus olor. Formerly scarce or rarer breeders are also becoming increasingly vulnerable including Common Scoter Melanitta nigra and Dunlin Calidris alpina (Crowe, 2019). These species illustrate the widespread declines in wetland species across the country.

For the purposes of this study, waterbirds are those defined, by sources including Wetlands International and The Ramsar Convention (see Wetlands International, 2020), as species of birds that are “ecologically dependent upon wetlands” and “are synonymous with waterfowl”. The report can be viewed by visiting IWM129.pdf (npws.ie)