A SPECIAL LIVE wildlife programme taking place at Glendalough Lakes in the Wicklow Mountains National Park is being aired tonight on RTE One.

To mark the end of the RTÉ Goes Wild season, Derek Mooney will present the one hour programme which will highlight the BioBlitz event that is taking place this weekend at four locations: Wicklow Mountains National Park, Co Wicklow, Burren National Park, Co Clare, Lough Key Forest Park, Co Roscommon and Colebrooke Estate, Co Fermanagh.

The largest mammals to the smallest bugs

Held every year, the BioBlitz event asks scientists and amateur naturalists to record the most species of wildlife over a 24-hour period. All animals, big or small count from the largest mammals to the smallest insects.

Teams of volunteers are involved in the event and will work through the day and night carefully looking out for different species they can add to their score card. The winners will be announced on Sunday evening at 7.30pm.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, bat expert, Conor Kelleher said the event is good fun and it can some times reveal things about an area that have largely gone unnoticed. He said:

It’s great to have all the these specialists in one area looking out for their special species. I won’t really be busy until the night time, but I don’t think my bat count will up the numbers too much as we only have about ten bat species in Ireland and only about seven of those can be found in Wicklow.

He said he was delighted to see RTE taking this step forward and putting on a live nature show. He said:

A lot of nature programmes are live now and they are a great success. It can be a bit of a risk, kind of like working with children on live television, it can be difficult to know what to expect, but a lot of planning has gone into the programme and I hope a lot of people will tune in.