Here\u2019s a guessing game. Name this animal. <\/p>\n
The International Union for Conservation of Nature<\/a> (IUCN) lists it among the world\u2019s worst invasive species. It kills 60 million birds in Canada every year; in the US, it\u2019s an estimated 2.4 billion birds and 12 billion mammals \u2013 that\u2019s more than cars, windows and wind turbines combined. A 2023 global assessment found it preys on more than 2,000 species, one in six of which are of conservation concern. It has driven 73 species to extinction and now threatens 433 more.<\/p>\n Killing is the headline; its presence alone changes how wild animals behave, feed and reproduce. It\u2019s also a carrier of parasites that cause toxoplasmosis, and is a reservoir for bartonellosis and salmonellosis. <\/p>\n Got it yet? <\/p>\n I had one once. An orange one called Gumbie. I enjoyed him, though it was a non-negotiable asymmetrical relationship \u2013 when he wanted affection, it was his decision, never mine. After a good feed, he\u2019d sit on my lap and purr so hard the vibrations reached my chest. And then, without warning, he\u2019d jump off and disappear outside into the night.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, on Harper\u2019s Island Wetlands in Cork Harbour<\/a>, a regular visitor sitting in a bird hide watched in horror as a domestic, pink-collared cat climbed up a hand-built nesting wall and pushed its face and paws into the holes. <\/p>\n Inside those holes were sand martins who had just paired up and begun to lay eggs. To get to this moment, they had flown a mammoth 4,000 kilometres from West Africa, where they spend their winters before coming to Ireland to breed. The journey is unrelenting and covers some of the harshest terrain on earth \u2013 the Sahel, across Senegal, Niger, Chad and Mali. <\/p>\n Arriving here around March, they\u2019re already under human-made pressure: chemicals we spray on farms, gardens and urban streets nuke the insects on which they depend for food; the sandy riverbanks where they burrow their nests are disappearing through erosion and dredging. Increasingly, they rely on man-made artificial nesting walls to have any chance at all of breeding. <\/p>\n Harper\u2019s Island is exactly the right kind of place for birds like these. The 30-hectare wetland in the northern part of Cork Harbour is owned by Cork County Council<\/a> and run by a heroic team of dedicated volunteers. They construct hides, create shallow ponds and build nature trails. The place is home to some of our rarest species \u2013 golden plover, dunlin, redshank, black-tailed godwit, lapwing, curlew, whimbrel and oystercatcher. <\/p>\n [\u00a0Ella McSweeney: Cornafulla Bog is a gold mine. Let\u2019s not squander itOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n In 2022, noticing sand martins feeding over the water, volunteers built a nesting wall with 24 tunnels. Every hole was filled with breeding sand martins within the year. So they built a second wall to make 48 nesting sites. It\u2019s a hard-won victory in a nature<\/a> crisis that\u2019s rapidly running out of them.<\/p>\n The domestic cat, with its pink collar, nearly ended its life in an afternoon. Predator pressure at a nest during laying can trigger immediate fear and abandonment, which makes evolutionary sense; there is no point in investing energy in rearing a nest of chicks when predators are freely roaming. <\/p>\n Think of what those sand martins have been through: a marathon migration, arrival in Cork, a nest site ready to go, a wetland with enough insects to rear a family, and females about to lay an egg. And then, someone\u2019s cat was let out after breakfast. <\/p>\n There\u2019s no gentle or subtle way of saying this, so I won\u2019t bother. When it comes to endangered species, cats are a scourge. They\u2019re among the most destructive invasive predators in the natural world, and we have somehow granted ourselves permission not only to allow it, but to stop any discussion of the fact that we need to decide how better to regulate cats and their owners. <\/p>\n I loved Gumbie. I never gave any serious thought to where he went when he disappeared into the dark. Yes, cats are companions \u2013 as I well know, comforting ones. But they\u2019re also killers.<\/p>\n Back when wildlife was more abundant than it is now, the argument for leniency perhaps made more sense. Today, it\u2019s reckless. In Ireland, we\u2019re watching as species disappear in real time \u2013 not from the Amazon, or from the Congo rainforests, or from the Scottish Highlands, but from our local fields, wetlands and bogs, our nature reserves, urban parks and gardens. <\/p>\n