An early morning message from Gemma O’Connor, IWDG Live Stranding Coordinator, just before 9am alerted us once again to an estimated 8 dolphins circling on a dropping tide in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare. Having assisted with a previous mass live stranding at the same location before Christmas, we were familiar with the terrain and felt well
With the recent announcement of 23 new Ministers of State, the final makeup of the new government is now apparent. These Junior Ministers will join the cabinet already announced, and all are responsible for delivering the Programme for Government (PfG) over the coming five years. In a time of unprecedented concern for the environment the
Strandings Overview for 2023 In September 2023, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) requested that IWDG include sea turtles as part of its remit. Although IWDG regularly logs sea turtle strandings in our database, volunteers were not previously asked to attend these events to collect additional data. We have now developed a sea turtle
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) with assistance from Vanishing Point (VP) is pleased to announce that we will be holding a Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) course from April 4 to 9 inclusive on the Beara Peninsula. Classes will be held on the pier in Castletownbere and practical recording sessions will include a short
The IWDG are collaborating with our colleagues BiosCV on Boavista in Cabo Verde on a new project to try and capture the range of vocalisations (singing) by humpback whales on these tropical humpback whale breeding grounds. Photo-id of humpback whales in Cabo Verde has revealed matches between Ireland and Cabo Verde (see https://iwdg.ie/2nd-irish-humpback-match-to-the-cape-verdes/) showing we
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) is delighted to announce our new Reporting App for mobile devices. After a year of design, implementation and exhaustive testing, this powerful new biological recording tool will be launched on May 22nd to coincide with National Biodiversity Week. The new IWDG Reporting App, developed by Compass Informatics and
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group advocate for a better understanding of cetaceans and their habitats through education and research. We believe that the first step in becoming an ocean literate and informed society, starts with our youngest citizens. We are delighted to announce a new educational resource for young and aspiring marine biologists, Ireland’s
Lonneke IJsseldijk I am a biologist, working as a researcher in the division of Pathology of the faculty of Veterinary Medicine in the Netherlands where I manage the marine mammal stranding research project. Commissioned by the government, we conduct post-mortem investigations on stranded cetaceans, aiming at establishing their causes of death, and specifically to understand