The team behind the first and only wildlife hospital in Ireland is reminding people that it is illegal to cut hedges during nesting season to protect nesting birds and their young.

The Wildlife (Amendment) Act of 2000 restricts cutting vegetation, including hedges, on uncultivated land during nesting season, between 1st March and 31st August.

The ban is in place each summer to protect biodiversity for animal habitats, particularly to avoid disturbance to the nesting sites of wild bird species.

“It is illegal to disturb any kind of vegetation in any way that’s cutting, trimming, felling or burning because it is nesting season,” said Aoife McPartlin, Education and Media Manager with The Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI)

“And it’s not just birds, all wildlife use our hedgerows and our trees for various different things, nesting is only one of them. It really is about protecting those birds and animals when they are having their young.”

Aoife says that people tend to wait until spring time to start gardening but in fact winter is when we should be turning our attention to the outdoors.

“People tend not to garden in the winter which is when we are meant to be doing all of the cutting,” said the wildlife expert. “When you think of it all of the plants themselves would have died back in the winter so if you start cutting down your hedgerows or trees, they are actually coming into life now as well as flowering so even for the actual vegetation itself it is not a good time to be cutting it”

Hedgerows are a lifeline quite literally for all wildlife according to Aoife who said:

“It is not about just nesting, it’s a habitat, it’s a shelter, it’s a food source, it’s corridors for wildlife as well, connecting all the fragmented habitats that we have around the country, and that’s why they are just so important. Even bats use them to navigate. That linear structure of a hedgerow guides them through the countryside.

“We were recently contacted by someone who didn’t realise there were five red squirrels kits living in an old tree that they felled so we’d ask people to please look prior if you really have to do it. One of our volunteers at the time, hand reared them and we then built a soft release enclosure near the site where they were found and all five returned to the wild.”

Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI) are currently engaging with Meath Co Council about the potential introduction of signage alerting motorists to wildlife in designated areas and compiling a report for the county engineer so we are hopeful,” said Aoife.

“What we really need are underpasses and overpasses and wildlife corridors but that’s a big ask so if we can start with a bit of signage, it’s all about raising awareness.

“It’s an absolute travesty out there on the roads and it’s so awful to see the loss of otters, badgers, hedgehogs, foxes, birds of prey including barn owls whose numbers are critically endangered. Pine Martins are another species whose numbers are also quite low although they are making a good recovery. It’s all about conservation.”

Wildlife corridors would be ultimate goal in protecting animals from danger according to Aoife who said:

“You’d see a lot of them in Europe. A great story came out from the States about a Puma who has been using this wildlife corridor for the last 12 years, there is this lovely video of her teaching her cubs to use the corridor under a motorway.

“When there are accidental corridors where something has been created by default, they will use them.

“When you are building a road, you are fragmenting a habitat, so if we can provide a safe passage for wildlife to move between the habitats, that is really what they are for. It helps with their dispersal and maintaining their genetics.”

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI) is still looking for a new home for the wildlife hospital after local opposition put plans for a premises in Mornington to a halt.

Last year they made an appeal for help in finding a new home after efforts to create a permanent purpose-built hospital dedicated to sick, injured and orphaned wildlife in Mornington were thwarted by objections to their planning application.

The facility that helped around 2,500 wild animals during its time operating at its temporary location at Garlow Cross near Navan between February 2021 and December 2021 has been unable to treat animals since and now faces an uncertain future.

In late 2021, the hospital secured a new lease at a former driving range, on the banks of the River Boyne and applied to Meath Co Council for retention of their assets but the application received a number of submissions against the plans.

“We are in talks at the moment, we’d love to find somewhere in Meath, we’d love to stay in Meath but we will have to see what happens,” said Aoife.