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
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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The collared dove now breeds north of the arctic circle, its extention of range is usually considered due to the demise of other species as far I thought.
I must be narrow minded…..Although in all my years, the climate of the British Isles has remained pretty constant. That’s usually wet with the odd great summer and the odd harsh winter.
I wonder if the Irish pubs are responsible for these phenomena.
Guinness, yuck
I trust that this is a firmly tongue in cheek contribution to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ book.
Oh the horror of it all – paradise lost.
Just consider how volcanic islands that rise above the ocean’s surface and, in the course of several years, are populated by “alien” species. There are so many vectors that can introduce “alien” species to new barren islands. Come to think of it, I would say that most every small island is populated by “alien” species. And in so-called stable environments, we’ve often heard of how human civilization acts as a vector for “invasive” species.
Global Spawning….
Aaagh…!
Next thing, you know, they’ll have snakes!!!
Google Badger badger badger
No. On second thoughts, don’t go to badger. Once you have gone there, your soul is lost. You will be condemmed to return every now and then.
Badger Badger Badger Muuush-rooom Aieeaa Snake snake!!!
It is compelling. Worthy of a scientific disertatiion.
Obviously most of these examples are due to modern transportation rather than climate change. I would hardly blame the rabbits and cane toads in australia on climate change. One example that did occur to me as possibly due to climate change, was the red kite in northern ireland, which would thrive in a warmer environment.
Funny how “pest” species are due to climate change, while something like the reintroduction of the red kite is an environmental triumph. Shows AGW is essentially bull.
Ireland has been a receptacle of ferals since before the days of the Vikings.
An ancestor of mine was sent there by James 1st with a small band of pursuaders to collect taxes.
It’s been downhill ever since.
Alien species introduced from New World to Old:
Maize
Potato
Tomato
Tobacco
Syphilis
Alien species introduced into North America from Europe:
Small Pox
Starling
Alien species introduced into North America from Asia:
Hostas
Peaches
Alien species introduced into Asia from South America:
Rubber tree
Chinchona tree (source of quinine)
Alien species introduced into Europe from Asia:
Tulips
Those poor Irish. Wait until the fast worm shows up (What’s holding them up?}. Don’t forget the designs of the spineless french crab on the Green Isle.
I thought this thread would be about Sammy Wilson. Maybe he’s the reason for the article?
http://www.anorak.co.uk/twitterings/189406.html
No surprise to find the dragonfly in Ireland I think
http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Anax_imperator/more_info.html
This dragonfly has a broad global distribution; it is found in Europe from Portugal to Germany in the north, and extends eastwards to central Asia (1). It is also known from North Africa and the Middle East (2). In Britain, it is fairly widespread in southern England and south Wales, but becomes quite scarce in the north Midlands, although there are signs that the species is currently extending northwards (1).
And it is well known that crabs and other sea animals are spread around the globe via ballast water tanks of commercial ships.
Trigger fish have been caught from the coast of the British Isles for a great many years… they are mentioned in a book I have, published in 1904.
Nothing to do with Climate change, more to do with ocean currents.
GeoS,
thought the same when I found this on BBC:
“The Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has angered green campaigners by describing their view on climate change as a “hysterical psuedo-religion”.”
Are some politicians finally waking up here in Europe? Lets hope so
Another example of an alien species delivered to North America: Earth worms. These very beneficial creatures are not native. They were brought over in the potted plants via settlers from Europe and Asia.
The Collared Dove was here long before GW. It spread out of India into Europe about a century ago.
Ireland was notable for record rainfall – where did those peat bogs come from ?
This GW stuff is so depressing the way they constantly harp on about it. I am going through a phase of wanting to scream and throw thing !
Eucalyptus is non-native in my native California, but of course it thrives there. If you were to remove the trees and their characteristic smell from the hills and valleys where it grows there you’d be playing God in a way that wouldn’t appeal to me.
There are instances where the obsession with native species, and their eradication, make sense, but by and large articles like the one here appear to reflect a fear of change, if not a desire to travel back in time to some mythical era before species started moving around the globe.
Off topic but there appears to be some serious SST cooling going on in the Carib http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.9.4.2008.gif
Is this the result of the passage of Gustav and Hannah? Since Dr Spencer posits that precipitation systems are natural air conditioners and Hurricanes/Tropical storms are most decidedly precipitation systems.
All hope is lost as the planet slowly cooks. Man has destroyed the planet and in the end will die out and the planet will heal. Man caused the orgianl ice ages as well and is evil. Man was on Mars at one time and destroyed it as well. Man was on all the planets and look at them now. The moon is a pefect example of mans destructive abilites.
Large amounts of CO2 that are exhaled by man has caused most of the destruction. Driven by evil, man created additional CO2 generating devices to speed up the destruction. In the end man will move on to another planet and the cycle will start all over.
Not…….
Blackcaps were already breeding in Ireland in the nineteenth century. Collared Doves have been expanding from an origin in the Middle East for about a century.
The Emperor Dragonfly isn’t wearing any clothes!
It could be warmer because of more adjustments
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/index.html, hard to keep track bugs in air and software to boot.
Uh,
Lobster boil.
Crab cakes.
Toad legs.
Anybody who drinks Guiness won’t have a problem with any of these.
And theres plenty of beaches that probably have drift wood for bonfires.
I’m thinking might not be such a bad thing.
Dill Weed
haddock,
Trigger fish are occasionally caught in Rhode Island, USA (southern New England) in late summer. They arrive on eddies that break off from the Gulf Stream as I understand it. I believe they die off with the winter cooling as they may not have learned how to swim south.
When Ireland became an island at the end of the ice age it was still quite cold so many species which are found in Britian and the European mainland had not made it to Ireland. Many of the species which are at home in Ireland have been introduced since the first people arrived. Introduced sub tropical plants do suprisingly well on Irelands coast due to the warm currents