{"id":613384,"date":"2026-09-03T18:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613384\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:36:09","slug":"release-of-non-native-skunks-in-co-kildare-being-investigated-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613384\/","title":{"rendered":"Release of non-native skunks in Co Kildare being investigated \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An investigation is under way into the release of seven non-native striped skunks in Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kildare\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kildare\/\">Kildare<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/national-parks-and-wildlife-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/national-parks-and-wildlife-service\">National Parks and Wildlife Service<\/a> (NPWS) is conducting the investigation as the non-native animals pose a potential threat to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/biodiversity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/biodiversity\/\">biodiversity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The group is asking the public to remain vigilant and report any sightings or information immediately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The NPWS received a report in March containing video evidence of a striped skunk beside a protected raised bog near Newbridge that is also an important site for native breeding waders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It became evident there were a number of individual striped skunk reported, the NPWS said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Local landowners, members of the local community and officers of the Breeding Waders EIP Project ensured seven skunks were \u201chumanely captured and dispatched from the area\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The last skunk was humanely caught and culled in late April. The NPWS said local community members used live catch mammal cage traps to cull the skunks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine\">Department of Agriculture<\/a> veterinary offices were contacted by the NPWS to find out if there were \u201cany potential disease or other considerations outside of the potential adverse ecological impact of the presence\u201d of the skunks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Four of the carcasses were submitted to a department regional veterinary laboratory for analysis. The NPWS said samples were taken for AI testing and tissue samples for potential future DNA testing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">One of three female skunks was found to be at sexual maturity and egg bearing. It said there were no other significant pathological findings from the postmortem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The NPWS said it is unknown how the non-native skunks arrived in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNPWS are keeping an open mind to the origin but are more focused on the point of release near a special area of conservation\u201d and \u201cwill liaise with all appropriate authorities as required during our investigation into their release on a protected special area of conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigation is under way into the release of seven non-native striped skunks in Co Kildare. The National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[851,22828,61,60,3770,4875,82,263],"class_list":["post-613384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-biodiversity","tag-department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-national-parks-and-wildlife-service","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613384","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=613384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}