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Category: Biodiversity

Protecting Our Riverside Trees In Order to Have Healthy Rivers

February 11, 2021 MRT Admin Leave a comment

Protecting Our Riverside Trees In Order to Have Healthy Rivers The Maigue Rivers Trust is very grateful to Limerick Leader's support for posting our article on riverside trees - 11/02/2021 Here in the Maigue catchment we have almost 1300km of river channel. The Maigue, Loobagh, Morningstar, Camoge, Barnakyle, Clonshire, flow through Charleville, Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Bruff, Knocklong, Bruree, Croom, Patrickswell, Adare, to name but a few. In the past two months, the Maigue Rivers Trust has received three reports from local people highlighting tree removal along sections of the rivers. Riverside trees are essential to healthy rivers but often their value is not fully appreciated until it is too late. Deteriorating water quality, habitat loss from arterial drainage schemes and loss of the natural riverside vegetation have had a detrimental impact on native wildlife and fish. At the time of the widespread drainage schemes, the..

Autumn Event Series

August 28, 2020 MRT Admin Leave a comment

The Maigue Rivers Trust is delighted to have secured funding from Creative Ireland Made in Limerick to work with communities in the Maigue Rivers Trust catchment who are interested in knowing more about their local natural environment. Do you want to find out about what animals, plants and insects are in your locality? We are working with biodiversity consultant, Geoff Hunt, and we want to hear from local communities who would like Geoff to visit and do a guided nature walk with them. On Saturday, 12th or Sunday 13th September (weather dependent) Geoff will meet your group (maximum 10 people) and will take you on a COVID compliant walk of your public areas and show you the secret and amazing world of autumn nature. Geoff will then compile a report and send it on to the group leader that you can then use for various community projects, e.g. tidy town assessments, Green-school projects, general nature awareness, etc. We can’t offer..

Survey time!

August 7, 2020 MRT Admin Leave a comment

The Trust is currently in the process of applying for LEADER fund training opportunities and we need to consult with you, the people and communities. Currently, the Maigue is running two surveys that will run from 5th - 15th of August 2020. Survey 1. The Maigue Rivers Trust would like to organise wildlife-based training opportunities for individuals and communities living in or close to the Maigue Catchment. To find out what you are interested in, we would be very grateful if you could fill out this short survey (it will take you less than 5 minutes - possibly just 3 minutes - to fill it out). To get a broad opinion from as many people as possible, please share this post with your friends and family. Click here for the Survey 1 link. Survey 2. The Maigue Rivers Trust is also running a survey for tourism based businesses in the catchment. The Maigue Rivers Trust wants to collaborate with local tourism businesses to develop and..

Newsletter 3, 2019-2020

July 15, 2020 MRT Admin Leave a comment

Click here to read our third newsletter to find out what has been happening in the Maigue Rivers Trust for the past 12 months. Many thanks to our director, Catherine Dalton, for putting this newsletter..

Help Bring Back the Salmon to Limerick

September 9, 2019 Rhiannon Laubach Leave a comment

2019 is the International Year of the Salmon. Atlantic salmon return every year from the sea to spawn in our rivers and streams. Sadly, the numbers of salmon have been declining rapidly in recent years. Reasons for the decline are mainly commercial fishing at sea, climate change affecting the oceans, impact of salmon farms at sea, and poor water quality in our rivers and streams where the young salmon live before they go down to the sea to grow to adults. Because numbers are now so low, a ban on the killing of wild salmon has been introduced as a conservation measure in Limerick rivers and many other rivers in Ireland. In the region of only 1200 salmon now return to the River Maigue and its tributaries (Camoge, Loobagh and Morningstgar rivers ) each year, whereas at least ten times that number returned in the mid-1970s. The Drumcamoge River, a small headwater stream of the River Camoge, flows near the communities of..

The Status of Salmon in the River Maigue

August 29, 2019 Rhiannon Laubach Leave a comment

Historically, the Maigue was recognised as a salmon fishery. Up to the middle of the 17th century, there were at least seven head weirs in the Maigue estuary below Adare where salmon were taken. There were also two salmon weirs associated with the monastic settlements in Adare up to the dissolution of the monasteries (Went 1960). By the end of the 19th century, salmon runs had declined significantly, probably because of over fishing in the Shannon Estuary: “Let me direct your attention to the River Maigue, which flows into the Shannon estuary a few miles below Limerick. This was once a well-known salmon angling river, but according to the testimony of Mr. R., who was born on its banks, it has totally erased from people’s minds as a fishing stream owing to over-netting at its mouth and in the estuary, and consequent dearth of salmon. (A Salmon Fisher’s Revolt. A letter addressed by the Earl of Howth to the Irish Fisheries..

The instream biodiversity of the River Maigue

March 4, 2019 Rhiannon Laubach Leave a comment

The Maigue Rivers Trust has commissioned Sweeney Consultancy to do biological assessment of the River Maigue to establish the biodiversity of the freshwater macroinvertebrate fauna and macrophyte flora, the status of the population of the protected white-clawed crayfish and the distribution of otters. A total of 110 macroinvertebrate taxa were identified from the 30 samples taken throughout the Maigue catchment. Seven of the taxa found were not previously recorded in Co. Limerick: two segmented worms (Nais pardalis and Nais variabilis), one stonefly (Diura bicaudate) and four caddisflies (Cheumatopsyche lepida, Lype reducta, Ithytricha sp. and Wormaldia sp.) If you would like to read more about the macroinvertebrates, white-clawed crayfish and the distribution of otters in the Maigue Catchment. The full report can be found on Maigue Instream Biodiversity Crayfish Otters..

Small Stream Characterisation System

September 27, 2018 Rhiannon Laubach Leave a comment

How Healthy are your Local Rivers and Streams? Would you like to be able to tell? If so, join us for training on the Small Streams Characterisation System Click here to book your free p SSCS article draft OtS issue..

Discover the Amazing World of your Local Stream

July 16, 2018 Rhiannon Laubach Leave a comment

Come and discover the amazing under water world of your local stream with heritage expert Geoff Hunt and The Maigue Rivers Trust. There will be pond dipping events in Kilmallock and Hospital on Saturday the 25th of August and in Lough Gur on Sunday the 26th. To book your place, ..