A cascading river swirls around an island in arbutus-filled forest, Killarney. If invasive sika deer, goats, and rhododendron were seriously tackled, this place could be a global wonder, instead of the dying wreck it is. - ThreadSky

irishrainforest.bsky.social • 69 days ago

A cascading river swirls around an island in arbutus-filled forest, Killarney.

If invasive sika deer, goats, and rhododendron were seriously tackled, this place could be a global wonder, instead of the dying wreck it is.

Comments

bestwildlifephotos.bsky.social•69 days ago

fantastic capture 👏

shiningbank.bsky.social•69 days ago

It’s still attractive.

call2createpod.bsky.social•69 days ago

People underestimate the damage invasive species are doing to the environment everywhere. Speaking from lower New York State.😑

pollystwin.bsky.social•69 days ago

Finger Lakes region, agree. Invasives destroy natural habitats.

princeofnice.bsky.social•69 days ago

Because it is so ugly now?

fairlieman.bsky.social•69 days ago

Never seen Arbutus unedo in its native range in Ireland. Must make a visit one day.

gspence2.bsky.social•69 days ago

👏🏾🤩👍🏾😍

ben-fraytos.bsky.social•69 days ago

Don't know what you have against the old strawberry tree. I have one in my garden and it's a perfectly civilised (even somewhat reserved) specimen.

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

Beautiful photo and I have no doubt it's a sacred place dear to the spirits of those near it. And, I'd like to humbly suggest that invasives do not make anything a "dying wreck." Invasives are part of life. They're the earth's children as much as any other plant or animal.

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

What if rhododendron, sika deer, and goats were part of the emergence of an entirely new ecosystem that could surprise us in its never-before-seen beauty and inspire poets as much as the place before their migrations could?

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

Every place we ever see was once different than it is now. And plants and animals, new to the ground, migrated to it, making it into the miracle it is now.

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

My gentle call is that yesterday's invasives are today's natives. And today's invasives are tomorrow's shelter, beauty, medicine, wildlife habitat, and source of a poetry that our great grandchildren will learn to speak.

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

(I'm not denying the heartbreak we feel when the places we love change. But my trust in the earth tells me that no plant or animal is a mistake. Whoever thrives in a place is who is meant to thrive there. And the awesome terror of climate change itself is shifting who thrives where.

silverbranchpermaculture.org•68 days ago

The native species that thrived somewhere with an average rainfall of X and temperature of Y will not be the ones that will be there when climate change shifts those variables. The invasives thrive because they are well-suited to the what the land is becoming. And we need life to thrive).

thomashugtree.bsky.social•69 days ago

😍📸

✌️🫶🌳

billhigh.bsky.social•69 days ago

I squinted and only saw sick E.T.

chindaswind.bsky.social•69 days ago

So powerful.

diarmuidobrien.bsky.social•69 days ago

I (and millions of others most likely) learned recently from the Windows OS automated screensaver on my work computer that there is another Killarney park, in Canada! This one seems much wilder that the bedraggled Irish one. https://www.ontarioparks.ca/park/killarney