Crackdown on sale and owning of invasive species

MORE THAN 70 non-native plants and animals, including some which are kept as family pets, are to be eradicated under new EU regulations to protect indigenous Irish species.

The Department of Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht has compiled a “blacklist” of unwanted species which have been identified as a major threat to native wildlife.

Under the Birds and Habitats Regulations, signed into law by Minister for Heritage Jimmy Deenihan yesterday, it will be an offence to sell, import, breed, release or allow the invasive species to escape. Anyone holding the alien plants and animals will be required to “dispose of them appropriately”.

The species list includes long established pests such as the grey squirrel and rhododendron, but also animals which have become popular pets such as the Siberian chipmunk.

“Walt Disney has a lot to answer for,” Peter Carvill assistant principal officer with the National Parks and Wildlife Service said, “but really chipmunks are not suitable pets and most children would be just as happy with a guinea pig”.

Chipmunks can spread rabies and also carry ticks which harbour Lyme disease.

They also, along with the grey squirrel pose a threat to the native red squirrel. The parks and wildlife service will work with pet shops to ensure they were not selling any animals on the banned list, Mr Carvill said, while pet owners would be asked to either contain the animal and prevent it from breeding or return it to the pet shop for extermination or export to a jurisdiction where they were permissible.

“We will be making a concerted effort to work with pet shops to ensure they are not stocking undesirable animals. We’re not going to penalise people who have bought a chipmunk, because the last thing we want is for people to panic and release them into the wild, but it will be an offence if people try to breed them.”

In addition to pets, animals imported for hunting such as wild boar, roe deer, ruddy duck, and carp also make the banned list. A number of wild boar had to be removed from land in Co Wicklow last year after they had begun to breed, Mr Carvill said.

A small number of animals such as the hedgehog, Irish stoat and fox will be banned from offshore islands only, where they pose a particular threat to the eggs of native birds.

Trapping and shooting programmes were ongoing in relation to some non-native species including the grey squirrel, but Mr Carvill said it was unlikely the species would ever be eradicated.

“Really what we want to achieve now is to keep it from crossing the Shannon into the west.”