Since 2012, the State has spent
over €2.4m in various initiatives to save the corncrake
Gordon Deegan
18:17, 30 JAN 2018
The corncrake could one day be as
dead a dodo in Ireland if male birds continue to disappear, new figures reveal.
The State bid to save the
corncrake from national extinction suffered a further blow in 2017 with the
numbers of calling males decreasing to 140.
The number of corncrakes, known
for their rasping calls, fell by 39% between 2014 and last year.
A 2017 bird census found that
there were 140 calling males - a drop of 16.6% on the 168 calling males
recorded here in 2016.
The population of the bird
declined from 230 calling males in 2014 to 183 in 2015.
The elusive bird was once
widespread across the countryside but the population was decimated by
mechanised farming.
It is now confined mainly to
Donegal, Mayo and Connemara and the continuing drop comes as the State devotes
even more resources to maintaining a population of the bird here.
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