A study which used remote cameras to photograph wildlife has reported the prevalence of the invasive Sika deer and an uptick in the number of native red squirrels and pine martens in Ireland.
The project, Snapshot Europe, is part of a Europe-wide initiative to record and monitor wildlife across the continent using camera traps, which take photos when animals pass by.
In all, 175 remote cameras were used across numerous locations and, in total, captured over a half million images.
The chosen sites were Wild Nephin National Park in Co Mayo, Slieve Bloom in the midlands, Moore Hall, Co Mayo; Glengarriff in Co Cork, Connemara National Park in Co Galway; Killarney National Park, Uragh Wood Nature Reserve in Co Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula and Wicklow.
One of the red squirrels photographed in the study
“We hope to classify all the data to be able to look at distribution, abundance, habitat preferences, of the different species,” said Dr Adam Smith from the UCD Laboratory of Wildlife Ecology and Behaviour.
“It feeds into all kinds of the conservation and management. As we say in science, if it’s not monitored, we can’t improve it.
“So when it comes to our environment, monitoring is crucial for making improvements of biodiversity.”
Watch: Pine Marten conservation status ‘may be improving’
Dr Smith added: “We want to feed into good and scientific deer management. We want to feed into the protection of rare species like pine martin and we want to feed into how better to manage, for example, tourism in national parks and wild places to reduce disturbance on wildlife.”
The images are being collated and studied, with the initial findings confirming the prevalence of the non-native Sika deer.
“Deer are obviously herbivores, and they browse trees, especially during the wintertime.
“And where we’re at now, with our climate goals, and our need for forests, it’s very difficult to grow trees native with high deer densities. So the idea with Sika is to reduce their number to a sustainable level that we can grow trees for the future,” said Dr Smith.
A Sika deer seen in Co Wicklow
The research team also noted an increase in native species, the red squirrel and the pine marten.
Dr Smith said: “The pine marten is a native carnivore. It’s a small and elusive animal, so it’s quite difficult to monitor and it’s very difficult to see them without using tools like camera traps. We see quite a few of them, and that’s good. It means the conservation status might be improving for that species.
A hare in Co Wicklow
A fox in a Glengarriff forest, Co Cork
“Over the last couple of decades, they’ve had more protection and they’ve expanded their range distribution, and with that comes an expanded range and distribution of red squirrels.”
He added: “Those two species evolve together, and they live together. Obviously, it’s a predator-prey relationship.
“The red squirrels, they appear on a lot of our camera traps, and it’s good to see them because they’re native, and for a long time, they were in competition with invasive grey squirrels. The grey squirrels have sort of seem to reduce their range, at least in our camera trap sites.”
It seems though that other native species were harder to pick up the cameras – stoats and hedgehogs among them.
Researchers say sightings of those species were seldom because of their size.