Merne, Oscar James (1943–2013), ornithologist and conservationist, was born on 6 November 1943 in Dublin to Oscar Sean Merne, a bank official, and Madeline Mary (née Patten). He was the middle child between two sisters, Morna (b. 1942) and Cloida (b. 1947). He attended school at the Christian Brothers College in Dún Laoghaire, transferring during his secondary education to the Presentation Brothers school in Glasthule, Co. Dublin. He did not go on to third level education at that time but would later gain an M.Sc. as a mature student at TCD (1986).
His father was an amateur photographer and one-time president of the Photographic Society of Ireland who encouraged his children to take an interest in the natural world. Young Oscar was an early collector of butterflies and moths. He recalled that his interest in birds began in earnest at the age of four or five during a winter of heavy snow when he and one of his sisters had the mumps: 'My father put food on the bird-table and flocks of redwings and fieldfares came. We ticked them off in our tiny Observer's book of birds' (Ir. Times, 9 April 2008). As a teenager he trained as a bird ringer under ornithological heavyweight Major Robin Ruttledge (qv) and cut his teeth at the ringing station on Great Saltee Island off the Wexford coast in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Merne initially followed his father into the banking business, taking a job at the National Bank Ltd and working at a number of branches throughout the country. But his interest in birds was always much more than a hobby. As a member of the Irish Ornithologists' Club he took the lead on establishing a bird observatory at Malin Head, Co. Donegal, in 1961 to study the migratory patterns of birds travelling from Greenland and Scandinavia. From early on, Merne knew that the accurate recording of bird species and their habitats was vital to any conservation effort. His ability to assess the number of birds in a vast flock, often in poor visibility, would make him legendary in his field.
In 1964, while working for the National Bank's branch in Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, he took responsibility for the implementation of a national census of the heron population in Ireland in conjunction with the British Trust for Ornithology. Heron numbers had been depleted during a recent bad winter, and further affected by increased tree felling and other structural changes to their territories, as well as the increased use of toxic insecticides, pesticides and herbicides in agriculture which posed a serious threat to all bird species. In early 1966 he announced his ambitious plan for a five-year national census of Ireland's twenty-seven species of nesting seabirds, which became known as the 'Irish seabird survey'.
Merne left the bank to work as an assistant on Éamon de Buitléar's (qv) RTÉ programme Amuigh faoin spéir. On the boat home from a shoot in Iceland in 1967, he met Margaret Claridge who he married the next year on 17 April. The couple had a son and two daughters. In 1968 he was among the founders of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy, the precursor of BirdWatch Ireland. The Conservancy, with support from the World Wildlife Fund and the Department of Lands, purchased 450 acres of land in the area known as the Slobs in Wexford to safeguard the migrating birdlife there, in particular Greenland white-fronted geese. On the Slobs Merne helped establish the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve and served as its first warden (1968–77). In that role he would establish high conservation standards, carry out detailed ongoing surveys of the geese and other birds, and work co-operatively with local landowners and hunters to protect habitats.
He oversaw the formal opening of the wildfowl reserve at North Slob which received 12,000 visitors in 1973, and in 1974 produced the book The birds of Wexford with Bord Fáilte and the South East Regional Tourism Organisation to promote the area to bird-watching tourists. That year he also produced the delightfully illustrated book Ducks, geese and swans. In 1977 he released his much-praised book Saltees: island of birds and legends, written with Richard Roche, and Irish wading birds in 1980.
His research work throughout Ireland was immensely useful in developing the 1976 Wildlife Act, in particular the identification and establishment of 110 special protection areas for birds following the 1979 EU birds directive. In 1977 he took on a research role with the wildlife division of the Department of Fisheries and Forestry. He would work under the auspices of a number of differently titled bureaucracies, including the heritage service Dúchas for a period of time, but his work output would be largely consistent (birdlife study and conservation), if his position gained more seniority over the years.
Merne's achievements in bird conservation are numerous. One such was an innovative 1994 project he instigated to increase the tern population at Dublin Port, using mooring platforms as nesting areas for the birds replete with shingle to mimic their natural nesting sites and timber frames to prevent eggs from rolling off or chicks falling into the sea. Between the inception of the project to 2012, the number of breeding pairs of terns in the Port soared from 34 to 600.
Outside of his official role, Merne was always busy with additional initiatives. In 1978 he began organising 'special nature interest' weekends in Wexford with his friend Éamon de Buitléar. He delivered many talks, walks and trainings to interested local and national groups, and was a preferred expert for comment on all things ornithological in the press. Every year Merne and his family would spend a week in June on the Great Saltee Island ringing seabirds. Studying and ringing seabirds, particularly those nesting on remote promontories required considerable bravery, and throughout his life Merne found himself in a number of tight situations. On one such intrepid expedition on the Great Saltee Island in 2003, he stumbled down a cliff and sustained head injuries, and had to be airlifted from the site by helicopter.
He retired from the public service in 2004, then working under the title of head of bird research at the National Parks and Wildlife Service, but continued to travel the country, to observe and count seabird species, and to produce vital work in support of conservation, often in conjunction with BirdWatch Ireland. He contributed his expertise to the 2005 documentary Sceilig and Bermuda about migratory seabirds, including the Manx shearwater and the storm petrel, which he had studied for upwards of three decades. In 2007 he worked with ecologist Julie Roe to produce 'The ecology of Blackrock', a survey detailing the 50,000-strong water bird visitors to the area in Co. Louth, the single most important site for wading birds in Ireland. He also continued to be very involved in the tern breeding project at Dublin Port, and also Rockabill Island off the coast at Skerries, Co. Dublin. He completed a significant amount of validation for the Bird atlas 2007–11, a collaborative project between Birdwatch Ireland, the British Trust for Ornithology and the Scottish Ornithologists Club. On his own doorstep in Bray, Merne monitored a flock of mute swans, one of the largest in Ireland, living in the harbour area. Over a twenty-year period he ringed around 500 of them and checked in on the flock weekly. Throughout his long career, and continuing thereafter, he published broadly, in addition to his books he produced some 275 ornithological articles, chapters and papers. He was a member of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy, the British Ornithologists Union, the British Trust for Ornithology, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Seabird Group, the Wildfowl Trust and An Taisce.
Merne and his wife Margaret spent most of their married life living in Bray, Co. Wicklow. They travelled together extensively when their children were grown, including trips to the Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, the South Seas and Kenya. Oscar Merne died following a long illness on 17 January 2013 at St Vincent's Private Hospital, Dublin. A farewell ceremony was held for him at Colliers funeral home, Bray, followed by a private cremation. In 2015 the 'Oscar Merne pontoon' was installed near the Great South Wall at Poolbeg and quickly attracted two dozen pairs of nesting Arctic terns. In 2014 the 'Oscar Merne hide' was opened at Dundalk bay, Co. Louth, named in acknowledgement of Merne's massive contribution to the study and conservation of the area's wading birds.