Panel: Richard Collins, Éanna Ní Lamhna & Niall Hatch

In addition to listening to us on RTÉ Radio One at 22:00 every Monday night, don't forget that you can also listen back to each of our programmes any time you like at www.rte.ie/mooney. There, you will find an extensive archive of past broadcasts, conveniently split into different topics and segments.

Tonight’s programme features segments about the serious threats that invasive alien species pose to Ireland’s biodiversity, agriculture and economy. When non-native plants or animals become introduced, either deliberately or accidentally, to an ecosystem where there are insufficient natural controls on their spread and they negatively impact native species, it can cause enormous problems that can prove impossible to fix. Prevention is definitely much better than cure.

To help you to get to know more about the threats posed by alien invasive species, our suggestion from the Mooney Goes Wild archives this week is a special programme that we made all about them. First broadcast in September 2016, following the publication the previous month of new legislation by the EU all Member States to take action on a list of 37 invasive alien species, it will give you plenty of background on the thorny topic.

To listen to this programme from the Mooney Goes Wild archives, visit https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/21054604/

Edelweiss - may you bloom and grow forever

One of the most memorable songs in the wonderful musical The Sound of Music – released a shocking 60 years ago! – is about a beautiful flower, namely Edelweiss. It happens to be one of Derek’s favourite songs, but why does he start tonight’s programme by playing it? Keep listening and all will become clear.

For more information about the Edelweiss flower, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelweiss

The threat posed by alien invasive species: don’t bring plants home from your holidays!

When you are abroad and you see a beautiful plant, you might be tempted to uproot it or collect some seeds, transport them back to Ireland in your luggage, then plant them in your garden. If so, we have one simple word of advice: DON’T! The introduction of non-native plant (and animal) species poses a huge risk to our native flora and fauna.

Removed from the biological and climate controls that limit their spread in their native range, some plants can quickly spread, forcing out native species, damaging soils and waterways and causing untold economic damage. You only have to look at species such as Himalayan Balsam, Japanese Knotweed or Rhododendron ponticum, the latter the notorious scourge of Killarney National Park, to see how introduced plants can quickly run riot and bring great harm, not to mention expense.

As our panel discusses on tonight’s programme, so much trouble could have been prevented had people not carelessly introduced those plants to our fragile island ecosystems.

For more information about invasive alien species in Ireland, visit https://invasives.ie/

Investigating avian intelligence

The term "birdbrain" should not be seen as an insult. Many bird species exhibit remarkable intelligence and problem-solving skills. The New Caledonian Crow, for example, fashions hooks from twigs and uses these to extract beetle larvae from wood, an amazing example not just of tool use but of tool manufacture. The Black Kite in Australia has been observed carrying burning sticks in order to start grass fires, driving small mammals out into the open as they flee the flames, making it easier to catch and eat them. Some species of heron even gather food, not to eat but to place carefully on the surface of the water to use it as bait to attract fish, which they then grab. Don’t underestimate our feathered friends!

For more information about intelligence in birds, visit https://avian-behavior.org/bird-intelligence/

Birds and humans join forces to exploit beehives: the remarkable tale of the honeyguide

One of the most striking examples of intelligence, manipulation and cooperation in the avian world concerns a small, largely brown bird called the Greater Honeyguide. Native to southern Africa, these relatives of kingfishers and woodpeckers specialise in feeding on a very unusual food: beeswax. They are experts at finding the beehives that contain this food but have significant problems actually breaking in to steal it.

To overcome this obstacle, millions of years of evolution have led the honeyguides to solicit help from a completely different species: our own! In Eswatini (the country formerly known as Swaziland) and other countries in the region, a remarkable symbiosis has developed over the millennia between the birds and human hunters. Once they have located a nest of bees, the honeyguides actively seek out a group of humans, calling to them in a specific way to get their attention and seek their assistance. The humans also have their way of getting the attention of the birds by being as loud as they can and some even whistle to the birds, while following them to the hive. The humans open the hive and take the honey, leaving the wax and grubs to the honeyguide: a perfect example of "you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours".

On tonight’s programme we are joined by Sanele Nhlabatsi, a researcher from the University of Eswatini who led a study about this phenomenon that was published recently in Proceedings B, a journal from Royal Society Publishing. He explains to us how this remarkable interspecies cooperation is maintained and passed on from generation to generation, as well as the cultural significance of this incredible mutually beneficial behaviour.

For more information about how honeyguides and humans cooperate in Eswatini, visit https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2025.0255

The problem of invasive alien plant species illegally being offered for sale

Returning to the subject of invasive alien species, given what we know now abut the dire consequences that invasive species can bring for our precious biodiversity, it is hard to imagine that some of these species might still be found for sale in some local garden centres around Ireland, But, worryingly, this is the case, according to botanist and horticulturalist Noeleen Smyth, Assistant Professor in Environmental and Sustainable Horticulture

in University College Dublin. Noeleen joins us on tonight’s programme to tell us more and why it is so important that the laws that are supposed to protect against the import and sale of invasive alien species are properly enforced.

For more information about regulated invasive alien plant species in Ireland, visit https://shop.biodiversityireland.ie/products/irelands-regulated-invasive-alien-plant-species

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

No, don’t worry, Mooney Goes Wild is not going anywhere. Rather, returning to our theme at the start of the show, Derek closes tonight’s programme with another of his favourite songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein's masterpiece The Sound of Music.

For more information about The Sound of Music, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music_(film)