Posts Categorized: News

The world is suffering a climate crisis unique in human history with drought, wildfires, disrupted weather patterns and extremes of temperature on land and at sea. This situation is becoming much worse over time and the reason for it is clear. Burning fossil fuels has released vast quantities of CO2 which acts as a greenhouse

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The Shannon Dolphin Project has been running for 30 years, barely three dolphin generations. However. we have gained some knowledge on their movements and use of the estuary, identified important foraging areas, documented calving rates, adult and calf survival and understand a little about their social structure. This work has shown the estuary is a

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The fin whale stranded near Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry was visited by IWDG Strandings Officer Stephanie Levesque under the Deep Diving and Rare species Investigation Programme (DDRIP). DDRIP was initiated by the IWDG in 2022 in response to a well-documented increase in recent years in cetacean stranding records reported through the IWDG Stranding scheme. These include

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After 2000, and the designation of the Shannon Estuary as a Special Area of Conservation for bottlenose dolphins, the Shannon Dolphin Project settled down. Dolphin-watching had become well established with the launch of two purpose-built dolphin-watching boats. Following the SAC designation, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) based a Conservation Ranger in west Clare

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  Week number 3 of our new scientific programme on the Celtic Mist was, like the previous ones, unique and fantastic. Even if our first sailing day was rough, we were fortunate enough to spot a basking shark as our first sighting of the week, thanks to curious juveniles gannets circling above (birds are always

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Looking for a weekend with a difference? Why not join the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) www.iwdg.ie, Ireland’s leading marine conservation NGO, on a weekend whale-watching course in West Cork during summer 2023.  By taking part you will also be actively supporting whale and dolphin conservation and research in Ireland. Our 2023 residential weekends

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Michael Viney was our best nature writer. Many have come before, and many are emerging, but Michael’s simple description of life in Mayo, living off his acre of land with Eithne and Michelle is untouched. His observations of Ireland’s wildlife and wild places were unique, always supported by current scientific knowledge and interpretation but wrapped

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Hélène Quévreux, our new biologist for the 2023 season tells us about the latest scientific survey onboard Celtic Mist After a few busy weeks between floating classrooms, Cork Harbour Festival and the Fair Seas conference during the World Ocean Day, Celtic Mist is back out at sea. Like the previous week of surveys, forecast of

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It’s been a very interesting few weeks for humpback whale research in Irish waters, as for the first time we can recall in almost 25 years, the humpback story has had a complete shift from waters of the Irish southwest to those of the northwest. A plot of all humpback sightings on our system produces

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