Green Party councillor and Cathaoirleach of Bray Municipal District (BMD), Cllr Erika Doyle, met recently with local vet Pete Weddderburn and volunteers Barbara Gordon, Marcia Nicholson and Gillian at the harbour, where they discussed what was needed to help protect the swans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a short, medium and long-term approach needed for the swan sanctuary,\u201d Cllr Doyle said after the meeting. \u201cIn the immediate term, I have asked BMD to order and erect signs asking dog owners to keep their dogs on a leash while in the harbour area.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost dogs are fine and under the control of their owner but unfortunately as we have seen, some are not. We need people to act in good faith. To bolster this ask I will be talking to the council and the elected members about updating our bylaws to include a provision that walking dogs off-leash at the harbour is prohibited.<\/p>\n
“Additionally, I will speak to them about updating the information signage at the harbour. Many people are well-meaning but feed the swans foodstuffs that are perhaps not ideal so it is important to have up to date accurate information visible to visitors to the area,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cPete Wedderburn has been involved with the swan sanctuary for a number of years and he has identified the primary critical threats to the swan\u2019s wellbeing as coming from inappropriate feeding, physical hazards, disturbance during nesting and moulting periods, and injuries or worse from vehicles and dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cA multi-stakeholder approach is needed, from the council, voluntary groups, wildlife experts and possibly in the future national government. Ultimately, it would be useful to look at proper designation for the swan sanctuary area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Swan Watch volunteers, backed by Pete Wedderburn are doing fantastic work. I know they are looking for more people to join up to help in a voluntary capacity so I would urge people to get in touch. In the meantime, if you want to help the swans with a donation, please donate to Kildare Wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swans are protected by the Wildlife Act. It is illegal to hunt, kill, capture or disturb swans or their nests or eggs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Green Party councillor and Cathaoirleach of Bray Municipal District (BMD), Cllr Erika Doyle, met recently with local vet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,10687,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-245434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-tom-galvin","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}