Posted by John Goetz
My lovely wife is Irish. She loves to talk, drink Guinness, and adores her motherland. I have to admit I love the place as well. We spent some time there just a few years ago and did not want to come home. The narrow country roads lined with stone walls on both sides were thrilling, especially when a truck was approaching from the other direction. We never got tired of hanging out in the local pubs, no matter where we were. The people were absolutely wonderful to us wherever we went and treated us like locals.
Thus, I was stunned and saddened when I saw that Ireland was under attack due to global warming. With the natterjack toad, slipper lobster, and Chinese mitten crab having established beachheads around the Emerald Isle, I fear that the country we only recently visited has been lost forever.
From the Independent.ie
By Paul Melia
Friday September 05 2008
Aliens have landed – and they’re thriving

An emperor dragonfly
ALMOST three dozen alien species are thriving in Ireland because of global warming and record rainfall levels.
Among species that have become a common feature of Irish wildlife are the Chinese mitten crab, bank vole, mourning dove, emperor dragonfly, natterjack toad, trigger fish and slipper lobster.
A TG4 documentary series, ‘Coimhtioch Gan Cuireadh’ or ‘Alien Invaders’, will show how some of the species arrived here only recently while others turned up generations ago.
John Murphy, of Waxwing Wildlife Productions which made the six-part series, said one new arrival was the greater white-toothed shrew, which had probably arrived in the roots of imported trees and were now thriving in counties Tipperary and Limerick.
The collared dove, cattle egrets and blackcap are new examples of birds; and slow worms, which are only found on the reclaimed meadow fringes of the Burren, were reportedly brought over by British hippies in the early 1970s. Alien fish species are appearing in greater numbers, including the grey triggerfish which hails from the tropical Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Perhaps some will falsley blame British hippies from the 1970s for the chaos that is now Ireland. In reality, however, they can only be blamed for replacing the famed Irish sprint worm with the inferior slow worm. Such narrow-mindedness obscures reality, for only global warming could deliver the trigger fish and collard dove to these shores.













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