€100,000 is to be spent in a last-ditch attempt to save an iconic bird from extinction in Ireland.
The curlew bird is the country's only red-listed bird species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature list of threatened species.
However, the Department of Heritage says our national breeding population has declined to below 150 pairs - a decline of 97% since the 1980s.
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They say that breeding productivity is so low that population viability analysis predicts, in the absence of any action, the curlew will be extinct as a breeding species within five to 10 years.
Noel Carney from Monaghan is an expert in Heritage and wildlife, and he spoke about why the curlew is near extinction.
