Gun clubs to be 'feet on ground' in new mink eradication pilot
Members of gun clubs in the midlands region will serve as the "feet on the ground" in a new pilot project to eradicate mink in the region.
The 2025 National Ploughing Championships saw the launch of a project to eradicate the invasive American mink in and around the midlands of Ireland.
The Midlands Mink Eradication Programme is a collaboration between the Breeding Waders European Innovation Partnership (EIP) and the National Association of Regional Game Councils (NARGC), and is supported by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
Speaking to Agriland at the launch of the project, Thursday (September 18), at the government tents at Ploughing 2025, Dan Curley, chairperson of the NARGC, said that the gun clubs in the region will provide "the feet on the ground".
"Our people are in every parish...and we're working with farmers already, and the community indeed. So these are the people who probably know where the mink are," Curley said.
"They'll put out the traps, and work with the EIP people to make sure their areas are free from mink and to take the mink out of their areas, and then keep an eye on it going forward over the eradication period to see how effective is it, is it working," Curley explained.
"They'll be keeping an eye on it, they'll be setting the traps every now and again, and seeing if anything is there.
"There'll be the use of trail cameras as well, to see if anything is there; it's generally trying to ensure that they're not there over the period," the NARGC chair said.
Also speaking to Agriland at the launch, Owen Murphy of the Breeding Wader EIP said that that EIP will oversee the pilot, as well as provide resources in the form of staffing.
Murphy said: "The Breeding Waders EIP has actions on the ground, [and] land management agreements in the areas around Lough Ree and the Shannon Callows.
"Lough Ree, in 2021, was recognised as Ireland's most important site for breeding waders, and the NPWS over the last five years has ran a mink control project on the islands of Lough Ree to keep those birds safe," he said.
"So building on that work we're doing a buffer area of 20km around that lake to try and the protect the birds that are on Lough Ree but give them a habitat to expand into if they're doing well.
"So the Breeding Waders EIP will oversee the midlands mink eradication programme. We will help with the network of trapping. We will also supply some staff, and most importantly...we will collate and produce data from what we're doing to show whether what we're doing is working or not working," Murphy said.
Andy Bleasdale of the National Parks and Wildlife Service told Agriland the purpose of the pilot eradication programme is to "learn effectively from doing conservation action on the ground in terms of management of mink [in] the pilot area in the midlands, Lough Ree and its environs, to see can we actually not just control the colonisation of mink, but actually eradicate it from the dedicated area".
"So that's the plan; it's to learn the costs of that intervention, the results of that intervention, are there any learnings we can gather... and how that would then be delivered nationwide thereafter if this proves successful," Bleasdale said.
