In her poem Slabhra na Beatha, Kerry poet Bríd Ní Mhóráin captures the peril of our indifference to vanishing species in a few unsparing lines, delivering at the end a haunting indictment of human inaction in the face of loss. “Nuair a tháinig tost ar ghlór na fuiseoige / an traona, an chuirliúin dúchais; Ní dúramar faic” – “When silence befell the voice of the skylark / the corncrake, the native curlew; / We said nothing”.
“We said nothing.” More often than not, the disappearance of life around us passes with barely a mention. For some of us, what lingers is a hollow, ineffable feeling that we’re destined to inhabit a land full of humans, no longer shared – a place emptied of other species and the sounds, smells, sights and interest they bring. It’s worth remembering, too, that there’s plenty of good news out there – more of it than we sometimes allow ourselves to see.
It may have cost millions of euro of public money, but the corncrake is making a comeback across Ireland. Numbers are up 20 per cent from last year, and there has been a 70 per cent increase in corncrake territories since 2018. Preventing the extinction of the corncrake in Ireland might demand a serious investment of resources, but it works.
Meanwhile, in the Isles of Scilly, a near-pristine underwater Eden, teeming with extraordinary diversity, was recently filmed by scientists. Over two years, researchers from the University of Exeter deployed baited remote underwater video cameras, capturing thousands of creatures: rare sponges, cold-water corals, thick, dense seagrass meadows, small sharks, octopus, lobsters and even bluefin tuna. This marine hotspot, which has been legally protected since 2013, has a problematic history. In 1967 the reefs suffered Britain’s worst oil spill, when the Torrey Canyon tanker released thousands of tonnes of oil into the sea. Today these same waters have been transformed and are brimming with life.
There’s nothing inevitable about extinction. It’s possible to reverse our way out
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Not long ago the mountain gorilla was on the brink of extinction. Today the species has a better future in the forests of southwestern Uganda, particularly within Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, where tourists pay hundreds of euro to spend an hour observing the gorillas in their natural habitat. A share of this “gorilla money” is then given to local communities, to fund clean-water projects, healthcare and education. This income has transformed poachers into protectors, now employed to patrol the park and ensure the gorillas are safe from harm. As a result, 1,000 mountain gorillas now survive in the Virunga Massif, a mountainous region straddling Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.
In Mexico the number of Jaguars has soared by 30 per cent since 2010. The survey work led by 50 researchers from the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation shows 5,326 individuals across 414,000 hectares. Conservationists credit this recovery to three efforts: a national awareness campaign, creating protected areas where jaguars can roam freely, and schemes to reduce conflicts between cattle farmers and jaguars. “The fact that the country has managed to maintain and even increase its population over the past 14 years is extraordinary,” said Dr Gerardo Ceballos, one of the lead researchers. “For me, it’s great news for the country. Mexico – and the world – need good news.”
On a Galápagos island, a tiny creature long believed extinct has returned. Mares’s leaf-toed gecko, a minuscule lizard no longer than your little finger in length, with broad, flattened toes that allow it to cling to rocks and tree bark like Velcro, was nearly wiped out when invasive brown rats discovered its tasty eggs. Following a rat eradication programme in 2011, researchers began seeing the dark green gecko again. Genetic studies show that the geckos are, indeed, unique to the island, suggesting that a small but resilient population somehow managed to survive the rat invasion. “The rediscovery of the Rábida gecko is just an example of the remarkable resilience of nature and the power of island restoration,” said Paula Castaño of Island Conservation. “It motivates us all daily to wake up and work to restore islands for nature and people worldwide.”
Closer to home, one of the UK’s rarest butterflies – whose numbers have plummeted by 82 per cent since 1979 – has returned to Wales after decades of absence. Researchers from Butterfly Conservation discovered the wood white in Powys and believe that nearby conservation efforts in Shropshire to bolster the species’ population are “almost certainly” responsible for its reappearance in Wales. The wood white – known in Irish as bánóg choille – favours nectar from flowers such as knapweed, bugle and meadow vetching. In Ireland, it’s found in the limestone landscape of the Burren in Clare.
In Pádhraic Ó Finneadha’s poem Don Traonach – To the Corncrake – he writes about how, in the past, the bird and the farmer shared the land as a place to both nest and farm. Today, with the intensification of agriculture, not only does the machine plough through the nest, but we cannot even hear the call any more. “Búireachan innill bhradaigh / ag plúchadh scread d’éagoine” – “The roaring of the plundering engine / smothers your lamenting cry”.
It’s possible to reverse our way out of loss and extinction; there’s nothing inevitable about it. To stay silent in the face of it is, in the end, an active choice. Hope feels like an indulgence we can no longer afford; what’s needed is people coming together to act.
