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Discovering The Wild Boglands Questionnaire - Answers
1. The area of Ireland that bog once covered was one sixth of the country or 1.2 million hectares.
2. Bogs are made of peat, which is the partially rotted remains of plants and animals.
3. Bogs began to form in Ireland 12,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age.
4. Bogs begin their formation in lakes. These gradually become colonised by plants which when they die do not decay because of the lack of oxygen. The lake slowly becomes choked up with peat. Eventually the open water disappears and a fen is formed. Fens are fed by ground water and are rich in minerals. Plants continue to colonise the fen and as they die they form more peat which becomes heaped in a great mass in the landscape. When this mass of peat is higher than the ground water table, a bog is formed which is fed by rain water and is very poor in minerals.
5. Three animals found on bogs are any of the following: frog, fox, slug, dragonfly, pond skater, red deer or hare. Three plants found on bogs are any of the following: sundew, butterwort, heather, bog cotton, lichen, orchid or Sphagnum moss. Three birds found on bogs are any of the following: meadow pipit, curlew, red grouse, hen harrier, skylark, merlin, snipe or heron.
6. Sundews eat insects to supplement their input of nutrients in the bog. The leaves of the plant are specially adapted to help them to trap insects. Each leaf is covered in up to 200 tentacles which have a drop of sticky fluid at their tips. When an insect stumbles onto the plant it gets trapped in the sticky fluid and the tentacles slowly move to cover it. After some time the entire leaf curls up tightly and the soft parts of the insect are digested by enzymes also found in the sticky fluid. When the leaf re-opens the hard parts of the insect's body which were undigested remain.
7. The surface of a living bog is uneven and covered in hummocks
and hollows. Depending on the size and wetness of the bog, there
can also be pools, dry ridges, lakes, swallow holes and natural
drainage channels.
8. Leather shoes, wooden vessels, gold torque, musical instruments,
butter, human bodies, great Irish elk, stone axes, bronze cauldron
and wooden trackways or toghers.
9. Peat preserves archaeological objects because of the anerobic
or water logged conditions which prevent decay. The cold temperature
of the wet peat also helps to slow down the rate of decay.
10. The name of the tool used to cut peat by hand is a sleán.
11. The peat in a bog can be up to 12 metres deep.
12. Traditional turf cutting by hand has died out in Ireland because of industrialisation.
13. Bogs are threatened by drainage, burning, planting of trees, overgrazing by sheep, the extraction of fuel and moss peat, the location of wind farms, trampling by animals and walkers, pollution and dumping.
14. We should conserve examples of Irish bogs because they have a unique collection of rare plants, birds and animals. Bog habitats are extremely beautiful and rare in the world. Bogs can tell us a lot about our ancient history. Bogs are very beautiful. Bogs are an important part of Irish culture. Bogs offer tourists the chance to experience a wild, peaceful and healing landscape. The next generation deserves to see Irish bogs intact.
