IWDG have just received a call 21/05/07 from Brendan Dillon, General Electric, who is working on the offshore windfarm at the Arklow Banks, Co. Wicklow, reporting a pod 7-8 Risso’s dolphins (Grampus griseus). This heralds the start of the well-documented Wicklow inshore movement of this poorly understood, deep-water species. Back around 2000, IWDG started receiving
Posts Categorized: News
Update 3: 16 May By Aidan Fleming This nice shot by Aidan Fleming taken at 19:00 on 16th May is of one of the pod of bottlenose dolphins bow-riding the LE Aisling, east of Cobh Town, near the Cork Harbour pilots station. This is the 4th consecutive day that these dolphins have remained in the
It’s been a busy week for IWDG on the live-stranding front, with two in two days. Today’s outcome was very different to yesterday’s.
Although the work of the IWDG is firmly focused on recording cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in Irish waters, we do accept, validate and disseminate basking shark records in the same manner as we treat cetacean sightings. We will continue to do so until such time as a national recording scheme is established which can
28 April – Sperm whale live stranding (26 April) – update
The IWDG have just received an interesting report from Marie Ryan, Kilkee, Co. Clare, with supporting images, which help us piece together a missing piece of the jigsaw regarding the movements of the juvenile humpback whale which was originally observed by Nick Massett, IWDG member while filming in Inch, Co. Kerry with a BBC film
Update…. 1 May 2007: We note with interest that the text appearing on this ad has been changed to reflect our concerns about the the ad’s inaccuracy….it now reads “Wildlife in Kerry”, as against “Humpback whales in Kerry”. But the image still clearly shows a composite image of a Southern right whale breaching off the
There are a limited number of places remaining on the IWDG whale-watching weekend which takes place on Tory Island on 11th – 13th May 2007. This will be our 4th year running a whale-watching weekend on the Island and in the past we have seen Bottlenose Dolphins, Risso’s Dolphins, Harbour Porpoise and Basking Sharks. Participants
IWDG have received two separate basking shark sightings on consecutive days, both were of small specimens in the Irish Sea. The 1st basking shark sighting of 2007 was reported by IWDG member Phillip Cooper who observed a 9-12ft specimen between Lambay Island and Rockabill off the north Dublin coast between 14:00 -17:00 on 15th April.
As part of my PhD, funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, based at GMIT, dedicated transects are carried out in Galway Bay, weather permitting once per month. These monthly transects are ongoing since May, 2005. Harbour porpoises have been the most frequently sighted species while bottlenose dolphin sightings have rarely been recorded. Other