On April 15th we received a report of a large group of c.25 bottlenose dolphins off Barleycove beach in West Cork by Siobhan O’ Driscoll. As this report came with a suite of images, it didn’t require much by way of validation and was duly processed and entered onto www.iwdg.ie. Two days later we received
Yesterday we received one of many sighting reports of basking sharks that have been sent to us by recorders and public alike since the shark season kick started off Cleggan- Inisboffin back on Feb. 19th. This record however by Ina Krüger, of a pair of sharks she saw feeding near Purteen on Achill Island was
The IWDG Position And A Call For Submissions The controversial practice of pair trawling by large boats for sprat and other forage fish in our bays and inshore waters may now at last be managed in a way which would conserve the stocks for whales, dolphins, fish and birds, and also give a welcome boost
NPWS adds new protection for cetacean species. The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and Fair Seas received notice this week from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage that new cetacean measures have been added to existing Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), with harbor porpoise and bottlenose dolphins added as Qualifying Interests to
Every few weeks we receive a sighting report which makes its way as an entry into my diary under the heading…. “Standout Sightings ”. On Wednesday 27th March, I added another. The reason for its inclusion needs a little explaining, as there is nothing that unusual these days about a common dolphin sighting off the
The IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force is pleased to announce today the creation of six new Important Marine Mammal Areas, called IMMAs, which include Irish waters and three additional Areas of Interest (AoI). The newly approved IMMAs represent the final result of a full-year process, including an intensive week-long scientific workshop assessing and
Some of you could be forgiven for forgetting what a basking shark looks like, that is assuming your name isn’t Pat Concannon, who runs the ferry service out of Cleggan to Inisboffin. Pat had the good fortune to see one this Mon. 19th February. But this wasn’t just another basking shark sighting record, it’s way
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue T.D. launched an important public consultation this week on trawling inside the 6 nautical mile limit and the baselines in Irish waters. The measures proposed will rectify the imbalance in access to fish stocks experienced by the inshore fleet, and help manage the uncontrolled exploitation of
January is an exciting month for me as sightings officer, as it gives me an opportunity to mop up any sightings not yet sent to or processed by IWDG from the previous year, which enables us to tally the year’s sightings and see how the scheme performed, at least quantitatively anyway. So, with the last
TG4 TV Series, Episode 3 of Inis na nIontas with Ardal O’ Hanlon and Sightings Officer Pádraig Whooley In 2023 we were approached by Aisling ni Fleatharta of One Tribe TV, who were planning a documentary on Ireland’s Islands for TG4. They were looking for IWDG to contribute to this series which was being presented