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AUTHORITIES IN THE French region of Alsace have launched an action plan to save a hamster facing extinction, more than two years after Europe’s top court rapped Paris for neglecting the little rodent.
The five-year project will see farmers in the eastern region implement measures to try to encourage the reproduction of the Great Hamster of Alsace, which can grow to 25 centimetres (10 inches) long, has a brown and white face, a black belly, white paws and little round ears.
It aims to raise the population of the creature to around 1,500 from 500 to 1,000 currently.
As part of the €3 million project announced on Monday by Alsace’s regional council, farmers have pledged to grow plants or grains that the rodent likes such as wheat or alfalfa on parts of their fields.
An action plan for the hamster had been put in place in 2007, but the European Court of Justice ruled in 2011 that France was still not doing enough to protect the furball, which hibernates for six months and spends the vast majority of its life alone.
The hamster has been protected legally since 1993 but its numbers fell from 1,167 in 2001 to as few as 161 in 2007, although they have since gone up slightly.
The preferred grazing of the creature – forage crops such as alfalfa – have largely been replaced by the more profitable maize, which it does not like.
Farmers will therefore try planting a mix of maize and alfalfa, or leaving strips of plants in between each line of maize.
“The aim is to find innovative… practices to preserve the animal without harming farmers’ activities,” the regional council said in a statement.
Rampant urbanisation has also contributed to eroding the rodent’s population, and the hamster currently lives in just 14 zones in Alsace criss-crossed by busy thoroughfares.
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And how much is paid to senior management?
Bet me to it by 8 mins Daniel!!
According to the Examiner this morning the Director gets between 120-130 000 Euros a year. This is a huge smack in the face for the majority of people who work in the charitable sector and earn a fraction of this.
Have ya seen the fabulous Trocaire or Concern building across the road from The Bleeding Horse on Camden St??? No poverty there!
It’s hard to raise €60,000,000 in a year without having the right staff on board. Their total salary outlay is 1.8% of all raised funds. Hardly extortionate.
Not sure how much the other senior staff get but you can be sure it is a lot. I work in the int. development field and I am disgusted by the salaries these ‘charities’ pay their senior staff. Far too much for what they actually do….basically hob knob. After a few years of seeing the abuse of ordinary people’s generosity I am very reluctant to donate anything to the bigger charities. Most of them are money spinners where donations intended to help the poor end up lining the pockets of the administrators.
@ Paul, Trocaire is under discussion here so for the sake of accuracy can you supply details of any funds from Trocaire that according to you ended up in some dictators pocket ?
@aaron: it is, once you get thousands of unpaid volunteers doing the work…
Dictators? Did I say dictators? Riddle me this John – Trocaire received over 4 million Euros in will donations last year, 18.5 million from the government and 25 million from the public, yet it is still 1 million in the red. How does that work? Here is the Examiner article http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2013/0819/world/trocaire-in-red-despite-1m-mystery-donation-240236.html It sheds a lot of light on the crazy salaries the senior staff receive. A loss making organisation that supposedly exists to help the poor should not be paying fat cats these amounts. Charity? Please.
Perhaps that dictators comment was a well placed Freudian slip!
So you’re saying they should rent out somewhere in Ballymun, is it?
Not to be insensitive to foreign aid organisations but we here at home have enough to be worrying about without giving what little money we have away
Compared to the countries where these aid organizations are working we’ve f*ck all to be worrying about.
You can’t give what you don’t have, this ain’t like the good times, if we give and give and give some more I assure you, we actually risk becoming a country that has plenty to give a fu*k about
Our hearts are in the right place but we simply haven’t got it to give right now
Also, this might be an obvious question but why not teach these communities about sexual protection so they don’t continue to bring children into such horrendous conditions…??!?
No one is forcing you or anyone else to donate and if you genuinely don’t want to donate then don’t, but trying to compare the ‘problems’ in this country to whats going on abroad is ridiculous.
sick of given donate donate donate its everywere if ya not helping kids donkeys and pink eye tigers and all for what cuddle toy and photos time too stop exporting money out this country pity ya cant donate three euro to the irish for large bottle of cop on
Has anyone ever seen a black person put money in a trocaire box?
What is the allocation breakdown of this money? Because €4 million should make a huge difference as should all the other hundreds of millions donated to this charity.. How is it that millions are still required?
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