Nature is flowering in Carlow, councillors told
Stock photo of otters
THE fact that otters climb trees in Carlow was one of the surprising facts presented to Carlow county councillors by biodiversity officer Shane Casey at the July council meeting.
During an otter survey in 2025 on the River Burrin, footage showed otters, for the first time, scaling trees to mark their territory. The video, shared online, shows a spraint (otter poo) site about 8ft up a willow tree. There was also evidence that they had scraped the bark to embed their scent deep into the wood.
Mr Casey excitedly presented the progress report on , which Carlow has pioneered, so that bees and insects won’t have to travel more than 200m to find another source of food.
He also outlined progress in restoring the stream at Powerstown, which had previously been dredged too wide and deep, resulting in the loss of spawning gravels and riffle habitat and causing overgrowth of vegetation. This made it unsuitable for fish spawning. But by removing sections of vegetation and adding mixed-size stones to the stream, the spawning ground has been revitalised.
He presented these insights in the context of the draft for the next five years.
Thanking Mr Casey for his work, cllr Fintan Phelan said there had been “a huge improvement in biodiversity in the county”, but expressed concern that the new plan might prohibit the dredging or proper maintenance of rivers in Carlow. He also noted that a plan to encourage greater tolerance of weeds might lead to the currently ‘neat and tidy’ approach to wildflower lawns becoming aesthetically unpleasing to his constituents.
Several other councillors shared his concerns about the prospect of the River Barrow not being dredged due to a need to preserve biodiversity.
In reply, Mr Casey said there was nothing in the plan that would prohibit other authorities from taking action on the river and “the best support” he could give was to focus on restoring fish spawning grounds along the tributaries into the rivers Barrow and Slaney.
As for the wildflowers, he said the point was to encourage people “to ease off on the throttle of the lawnmower” and asked people not to use wildflower seed packets, which may contain non-native species.
“Just let what’s there come up naturally. Sometimes, it’s not supposed to look neat and tidy – it’s supposed to look wild,” Mr Casey said.
