Article by Dave Wall, Conservation Officer with the IWDG Between August and September 2018 more than 70 dead Cuvier’s and Sowerby’s beaked whales and Northern Bottlenose whales, washed ashore on the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Scotland. All of the animals were in an advanced state of decomposition, indicating they had died offshore and spent
The IWDG has written to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, to express concern over the potential impact on whales and dolphins of the proposed military exercise off southwest Ireland. Military exercises, especially when using active sonar, are known to have a potentially huge impact on marine mammals, especially deep-diving species. There have been
IWDG is very sad to hear of the passing of Don Cotton. Don was press-ganged into being the Chair of the IWDG when it was formed in December 1990. He brought instant credibility to our new group and ensured we maintained high scientific values and ambitions from the very start. Although Don was an
Citizen Science has been recognised over the past few decades as an important medium between scientists and the public, and has been used as a cost-effective tool to collect data through broad-scale surveys. With its ability to increase the quantity and spatial extent of cetacean observations, it has been considered as vital for marine mammal
On Sunday 14th November, IWDG received an online sighting report of what at a glance seemed like a fairly ordinary sighting of a pair of harbour porpoises; a species that are regularly seen and reported to IWDG off Clogher Head, Co. Louth. However, the report got a whole lot more interested on reading the comment
IWDG data has been used in a large study to explore the changes in the abundance and distribution of common dolphin in the Bay of Biscay. Using a large collaborative dataset of 1728 sightings of common dolphin collected during 21 different surveys including data from IWDG Ship Surveys, senior author Amaia Astarloa from the AZTI
A new species of whale was formally announced today. A paper describing Ramari’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu) was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. This is a result of work by a team led by Dr Emma Carroll from the University of Auckland. A combination of genetics and skull morphology resulted in True’s
by John Collins Friday 15 October 2021 This past week the RV Celtic Explorer has been out in the Celtic Sea conducting the annual Celtic Sea Herring Acoustic Survey. The IWDG won the contract to place a Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) onboard to record whales, dolphins and other marine megafauna of note. On this survey,
Did you know the IWDG and our core sponsor Inis Energy of the Sea strongly believe that the first step in Ireland becoming an ocean literate and informed society starts with our youngest citizens? And that we have a junior membership available to support this? Well, we do, and we want it to be available
Our first international humpback match dates back to an image taken by Conor Ryan in September 2007 out on a whale watch trip with Colin Barnes off Toe Head, West Cork. Within a few hours of our posting the images on www.iwdg.ie of its well-marked dorsal fin there was an excited call from a Wouter