Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 20/08/2025I'm terrible at updating you all on conservation and ecology work, but I can promise you this: It is the biggest year for Irish camera trapping since records began, and it's not even close. Why is this important? With this data, we can guide management and learn more about Irish nature. 0192
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 29/07/2025Despite concerted efforts in Ireland to prevent harmful deer-feeding by the public in city and national parks, this kind of content is rampant in Facebook groups and cheered on by people blind to the potential harm being done... doi.org/10.1111/csp2... 141
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 26/07/2025But with the same issues in the meadows the deer basically never use, which makes it actually quite interesting. Photo here of an oak from the central woods beside the main doe herd. Not sure it'll last but it has a chance, and wasn't the only one! 11th June 2025 110
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 12/07/2025In the abandoned city of Pripyat, in the Ukrainian Chornobyl Exclusion Zone 🇺🇦 A number of beautiful murals of wildlife. 0193
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 10/07/2025After a couple of years, I'm happy to be back in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone for wildlife monitoring in one of Europe's most unique places! I'm even happier about just being in Ukraine 🇺🇦 1112
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 23/06/2025Plenty of deer calves up and moving about at the moment. 📍 Wicklow Mountains, Ireland 060
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 14/06/2025Ancient Carpathian beech forest? No, a small corner of county Wicklow, Ireland 🇮🇪🌳 0112
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 10/06/2025MEGA paper led by my colleague Joe Premier of @wild-ecol-cons.bsky.social, in collaboration with the Lifescape Project. "Exploring the ecological feasibility of restoring Eurasian lynx to Great Britain using spatially explicit individual-based modelling" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 042
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 08/03/2025Don't just vote for your interests or make your world a better place for just you. Make the world a better place for the people who need it most. #InternationalWomensDay 050
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 23/02/2025Dublin was blue and yellow today, and the sun shone down on us! Ukraine still stands, and we still #StandWithUkraine 🇮🇪🫂🇺🇦 0111
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 15/02/2025Maybe using Germany was an unfair example, obviously the wolf distribution is still not covering all areas. In Italy, the wolf is nearly distributed across the whole country (see photo). Have Italy stopped hunting deer or boar, and "fixed" their herbivore problems? 1120
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 15/02/2025So with this news, we can expect that herbivore populations must balancing and hunting has stopped? Let's take Germany. Here is the current wolf distribution (see photo 1). In that part of Germany, there is a large population of boar too (see photo 2) - great! 1100
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 14/02/2025Wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a camera trap picture and a shitty caption ❤️ 010
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 10/02/2025Something also to consider for Meath, Kildare, Carlow, Wexford - the fabled forests of Leinster the Normans recalled have all but vanished, yet the land is still highly suitable. Shows the strength of competitive land uses well I guess 020
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 01/02/2025First in-person #SixNationsRugby game in 5 years!!! It was not a boring game of rugby by any means, my voice is gone after it 0100
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 31/01/2025I will jump on @kfmradio.bsky.social just after 10:30 Irish time to chat about our #SnapshotEurope camera traps from last year and some of the initial wildlife observations! kfmradio.com/player/ 061
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 29/01/2025Ireland's invasive species interacting with one another? Invasive American mink predating what looks to be an invasive greater white-toothed shrew on the banks of the River Liffey in North Kildare. 0233
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 25/01/2025And so it goes! Photo from @wicklowaxes.bsky.social 010
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 09/01/2025🎵 "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are frozen" 🎵 060
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 05/01/2025Finally starting deer surveys in Kildare 🇮🇪🤍 Luckily all was finished before the snow surprised us! 040
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 03/01/2025The quality of search engines is crap for wildlife information needed by the public, impaired by poor optimisation and image recognition. Here, every fallow deer picture is incorrectly labelled, despite the actual Woodland Trust web pages for red and fallow deer being correct... 030
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024I started this work as a side-project and grew it with colleagues into an important and useful data source for wildlife management and conservation. If you also see its importance, please share and talk about this project, get in contact, and support science-based wildlife work in Ireland! ☘️💪 2151
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Finally, a shout out to the birds! Our most common birds are thrushes, followed by a lot of Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius) and woodpigeon (Columba palumbus). And sometimes, surprising observations - woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) or greater spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopus major). 1120
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Some other mammal highlights include: the Irish hare subspecies (Lepus timidus hibernicus), badger (Meles meles), and singular and new observations of two mustelids: the Irish stoat subspecies (Mustela erminea hibernica) and the invasive American mink (Neogale vison). 1120
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024We are also interested in pine marten (Martes martes), following low numbers a few decades ago, and we see them pretty regularly (~50% of sites). They often occur at locations with red squirrels (Scurius vulgaris) and sometimes with invasive grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) too. 1171
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Back to real wildlife, and the occurrence of carnivores is widespread. We observe red fox (Vulpes vulpes) on about 80% of camera trap sites. In 2024 we had some real posers putting on a show for us... 1151
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024And while sika are most often seen (80%+ of detections) we get a lot of other amazing observations! Yes, we see your dogs and cats out there, but also the local sheep and feral goats make an appearance too. 2131
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Critically - we have the possibility to describe trends in densities, management effects, age/sex structure, and behaviour of these deer. However, this is time-consuming scientific work and expert analysis obviously needs to be properly funded - we are searching for mechanisms! 1131
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Notably, the area is home to Japanese sika (Cervus nippon) and hybrids between sika and red deer (Cervus elaphus). There are also fallow deer (Dama dama) localised to some areas. This raises key questions for management and hunting objectives, as well as biodiversity and conservation. 1101
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024Central county Wicklow was chosen as it as a known deer hotspot, yet very little scientific work on deer population monitoring has been done over the years. Originally, 2021 was a pilot proof of concept, but over the years myself and my partners have amassed an unbelievable amount of deer data! 1111
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2024I started Ireland's most ambitious camera trap project in Wicklow as part of the Snapshot Europe initiative ☘️ Since 2021, I have partnered with UCD and ReWild Wicklow - deploying 150 camera traps, collecting ~400,000 photos, and ~31 years worth of survey effort. 2024's details and highlights 🧵👇 511126
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 29/11/2024What if... ...we kissed in front of the camera trap? 💋🦌 (UCD Wildlife and ReWild Wicklow) #SnapshotEurope2024 0163
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 26/11/2024A family member was recently in South Africa and sent me this photo 😍 Might be top of the list for best African antelope! 010
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 20/11/20244 years, 8 months since I moved country 🇩🇪 But now it's time to come home! 🇮🇪 240
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 17/11/2024On Friday they put a hat on my head, and called me "Dr. Smith" #phDONE Looking forward to continuing to work with wildlife and nature into the future! And I'll be on Bluesky for it too!!! 12582
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 25/10/2023Satellite-derived vegetation indices from the Carpathians, Europe's wildest mountains ⛰ 000
Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @adamfsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2023This is Bavaria in a nutshell (the beer is behind the camera). Unseasonably warm weather continues... 020