Grazing cattle used for first time in airport biodiversity project

RTÉ News​

19-05-2025

Grazing cattle have been used for the first time on airport-owned land in Ireland, as part of the initial phase of the Shannon Airport Group's Farmland Biodiversity Enhancement Project.
The announcement coincides with National Biodiversity Week, which runs until 25 May.
The 10-acre site near the airport hosts rare and endangered species of native grasses and flowers, such as bee and pyramidal orchids.
After scrub clearance in 2024 by a team from the airport, traditional Droimeann cattle - a native, rare breed in Ireland - were introduced for conservation grazing during the non-growing season.
Head of Sustainability with Shannon Airport Group Sinéad Murphy said, "it's a regenerative form of managing the land, and so we're really going back to how the land would have been managed many years ago.
"So we've worked with the local farmer who's brought in heritage breed cattle to really keep back the scrub. They're also very light cattle in comparison to standard cattle and that really stops the ground being compacted, and this allows the flowers and the grasses to flourish."
Led by the Shannon Airport Group Biodiversity Team and supported by a farmer and a botanist, the project is helping to restore and protect the rare habitat of Thady's Hill and its unique plant species.
The site, less than 2km from Shannon's runway, used to belong to the grandfather of local farmer John Quinlivan.
Now he has come on board for the project.
"I was asked if I would be interested in putting some native-breed cattle on the land, so I bought six Droimeann cattle," he said.
"They're keeping down the vegetation so the rare flowers and plants that were found in the area will thrive. The idea is to try and have the cattle here during the winter time especially, to graze the land and give room for the rare flowers to prosper and develop."
The next phase of the project involves collaboration with Polliknow, a company that has developed devices using advanced sensors and computer vision to monitor wild insect pollinators - key indicators of ecosystem health.
Polliknow Founder Meg Brennan said the devices will be placed around the site and will sit there "for weeks and months at a time, and what they do, they're counting the types of different insects we're seeing.
"So different bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and how many of them year-on-year we can see that changes the progression over time.
"Typically, on sites like this that have been managed for nature, we hopefully see that increase over time, which is an indicator of biodiversity. We're working with ecologists and botanists on-site, as well as our data, to assess the actions they've taken have improved the local biodiversity.
This farmland project is the latest arrival as part of Shannon Airport's Biodiversity Action Plan, with a number of initiatives already in place, including pollinator-friendly management of landscaping and a biodiversity garden.