CONSERVATION ISSUES: Over 50% of Ireland's wetlands have been lost to drainage, industrial peat extraction, pollution and natural causes in the past 100 years. Exposure to chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides can cause newts agonising deaths. It is thought that the chemicals absorbed into the skin effect the balance of chemicals in the moist tissue.

Protecting Legislation:

• Schedules 5, 6 and 7 of the Wildlife (NI) Order 1985
  
• Appendix III of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.
  

© Jon Russ 2001. Text refereed by Angela Ross & Lynne Rendle.

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