Mourne Mountains wildfires could push away some species, say conservationists

Butterflies, birds, insects and lizards are among the many species negatively affected by A series of recent forest fires In the mountains of Morne.

There are bone Almost 300 of those fires In Northern Ireland since April 3.

The Fire Service and Rescue of Northern Ireland said that many began deliberately.

The National Trust manages a special conservation area in the Doros, “with the entire site specifically designated due to the habitat that is there,” said his main rangers, James Fisher, to BBC News ni.

Hello, they fear that some species do not return after forest fires.

Firefighters continue to address a Tojo fire in Brokorough, Fernmanagh County.

On Friday, the Firefighters service confirmed that its staff attended 1,112 incidents from Thursday, April 3 to Thursday, April 10, 296 or that were forest fires.

Grayling and small health butterflies “are really rare in other places, so their population will be really affected,” Fisher added.

After a fire In the area in April 2021, The National Trust conducted a survey for invertebrates and found “a 90% reduction in the life of invertebrates” of the burned earth compared to the areas that remained without burning.

“They formed the basics for many thesis habitats, in terms of food for birds or closer mammals, or simply for the lizards we want there,” he added.

In the Doros, Mr. Fisher said that the cracks of Rave and other insects “support the Skylarks and the prairie pipits that come from the lowlands to nest in the highlands at this time of the year.”

“Those birds, in turn, provide a source of food for some of the most charismatic birds, such as pilgrim hawks or hills.”

The mountain range has more than 50% of the health habitat of the highlands of Ireland of the North, according to Mr. Fisher.

Highland Heathland is characterized by the presence of low growth bushes, such as Heather.

“It is a real main area for the only native lizard that we obtain in Northern Ireland: the Vivipario Lizard,” he added.

Forest fires of April 2021 caused the purple grass of Páramo “to really take off” and prevented other plants, such as Heather, to grow again.

“It really changed the entire community of what we would designate a community of highlands of highlands to a community of highland grasslands or a community of acidic grasslands,” he said.

The cattle were placed in those areas to eat the grass, to try to restore the Brezal.

It feeds red from Urogallos in young broken outbreaks and nests in the most mature heather stalls.

But with fires destroying much of the vegetation in the area, Mr. Fisher fears that the red urogallo moves outside the area, if the heather does not return.

“With the time it takes for the heather to reach maturity and form the densest, most mature positions, the urogallo that has just been able to survive there, for what they won,” he said, “he said.

Dr. Neil Reid is a conservation biologist at the University of Queen.

He investigated the impact of forest fires on the Doros in 2011.

He said that the fires “covered about 10 square kiloms in an area not different from where they are burning at this time.”

His research found that many wetland species, such as carnivorous sun and swamp asphodel, disappeared after fires.

Some birds had not yet returned a year after the fire either.

With forest fires that are apparently happening in the Doros every few years, Dr. Reid says that “it is a kind of death for a thousand cuts.”

“You lose a little every time and the mountain becomes increasingly impoverished, more and more grassland and less and less humid peat bogs,” he added.

“From the growth rate we observe in the heather, we could extrapolate that the heather takes about seven years to recover all its height again, but that does not mean that the ecosystem is restored.

“That means that heather has returned, many of those other species would never come back.”

The conservationist Andy Carden carries out birds breed surveys in the Doros twice a year.

In spring, insects eight mosquitoes arrive from Africa to nest and reproduce in the Doros.

“Without insects and with the burned and black terrain, they will not have the houses for which they have flown here,” he said.

“The birds that nest the ground, such as the Alondra and the Pipits of the Prado, the Wrens and Stonechats, will have lost their nests and eggs.”

The area next Bloody Bridge Valley, where firefighters approached a two -mile fireIt is a very important “very important” reproduction place for the Alondra.

He said it will be “a sad view” when he does the next bird survey.

“The habitat will only be destroyed,” he said.

“It’s hard to know if there will be any reproduction there in this year.

“It takes a long time, a long time to return.

“Places that have burned a decade or more than that, it shows and can see that the vegetation is different. It has returned.”