The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group are delighted to benefit under the Ryanair Carbon Offset Partnership with support for our WhaleTrack Ireland project.
The aim of WhaleTrack Ireland is to determine what large baleen whales are doing in Irish waters, and where are they coming from and going to. This project will engage with citizen scientists, with whom the IWDG have already been encouraging and working for decades. We will carry out dedicated fieldwork to photograph and biopsy animals, as well as using drones to measure the body condition of both humpback and fin whales in Irish waters.
The funding will enable IWDG to survey waters not currently covered by our network of citizen scientists. The first whales are expected to appear in inshore Irish waters around the end of March, typically off west Cork or Kerry.
Humpback Whale tail-fluke © Nick Massett, IWDG
IWDG CEO Dr Simon Berrow said…. "we are delighted to be chosen by Ryanair as recipients and would like to thank all Ryanair customers for making a contribution to this important work. WhaleTrack Ireland is a very exciting project and has the potential to not only increase our knowledge of these iconic animals but to share the excitement of seeing humpback whales with people in Ireland".
For more detail and to follow our progress please go to https://iwdg.ie/whaletrack/
Click here for a description of the project and Ryanairs support.
