Posted:
3:34 pm November 30, 2019
By Roisin
Henderson
A NEW
boat has been launched to help save the some of Fermanagh’s most endangered
birds.
A
new traditional cot, which will be used to transport livestock and machinery
from the islands of Lower Lough Erne, has been launched by the RSPB. The boat
will be named after the Joe Magee, a pioneering Fermanagh bird conservationist,
and will be used to manage the habitats of endangered local wildlife including
curlews and other breeding wading birds such as snipe, redshanks and lapwings.
Joe was
RSPB warden between 1971 and 1998 and was one of the first people to notice the
alarming decline of breeding wading birds in the county. He originally designed
a cot for transporting grazing livestock that help the RSPB maintain their
islands on the lough, but it now needs replaced.
“We
originally used a wooden cot, which a farmer let us use. Then we built our own,
although at first it had no engine on it and we had to tow it using another
boat. So eventually we got an engine and that made life easier,” said
Joe.
“I knew
that across the island of Ireland curlew numbers were dropping, so it’s
important that work is still being done to look after them.”
Current
RSPB NI area manager Brad Robson, who succeeded Joe in Fermanagh in 1998, said:
“The cot is used throughout the year. We move about 150 cattle and 60 sheep
back and forth to our managed islands, as well as livestock to other
privately-owned islands. In its first voyages, the new vessel will be used to
bring livestock off for the winter.”
Mr Robson
thanked the Co-operation Across Borders Bioderversity project, which provided
the cot and is funded by the EU’s Interreg Programme.
Fermanagh
is home to 10 percent of the curlew population on the island of Ireland, with
39 pairs on the RSPB NI Fermanagh reserve in 2019. But curlews are in a
perilous state, as numbers in Northern Ireland have declined by 89 percent
since 1987.
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