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Membership
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Shop to Support
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Donations
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Adopt a Whale or Dolphin
Benefits of
a Membership
- Stay up to date with the work of IWDG with our electronic magazine sent every two months with IWDG news, upcoming events, workshops and rare sightings or strandings reported to us through our schemes.
- Our magazine is sent out every six months and includes detailed stories from our various projects, including updates on the monitoring of the Shannon dolphin population at the conclusion of each field season, feature articles from guest contributors along with stories from our very own members.
- Actively participate in our research by joining us onboard our Research Vessel Celtic Mist to assist in carrying out whale, dolphin and porpoise surveys to collect abundance and distribution data in addition to opportunistic photo identification images around the Irish coast.
- Receive discounted prices on selected products
in the IWDG Shop.
IWDG People
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group community is a diverse collection of people who have one thing in common; a passion for whales and dolphins and the desire to see them protected.
Paddy Crowe lives on Inis Óirr in the Aran Islands. He has been a supporter of the IWDG since it started in 1991.
Living on an island gives you a different perspective on life and the future and gives you a very strong connection to the sea.
What your
Membership
Supports
Your membership supports many of our long-term core programmes that are fundamental achieving our goals. The Shannon Dolphin monitoring project and the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Centre are among the programmes partially funded by group membership.
Membership support has allowed the group to continue monitoring the health of this population since 1993. The visitor centre houses the groups artefacts, such as fully articulated skeletons, including a rare pygmy sperm whale, acoustic presentations and much more. IWDG researchers provide free tours of the centre to the public and are open from the start of May till the end of August.
Who are our members and how they support whales, dolphins and porpoises in Irish waters?
Our members come from all walks of life and hail from the wild coasts, the midlands and our largest cities. They are old and young and have gone from children with an interest in nature to professional marine mammals’ scientists.
All members are interested in whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans) and want to support the groups work and some members opt to receive updates on issues facing cetaceans in Irish waters. Other members are more actively involved with maintenance and crewing on Celtic Mist, while others help to organise events within local groups.
Whether your involvement with the group is a little or a lot, your support of our work and mission is greatly appreciated!
How Members have
helped Whales, Dolphins
and Porpoises in Irish Waters
The founding IWDG members were instrumental in Ireland becoming the first sanctuary in Europe for dolphins and whales.
They have continued that support in helping the group in many ways. They have greatly contributed to sightings and stranding schemes. From reporting casual sightings, dedicated effort watches from headlands, to sailing the seas around Ireland, and further, on board Celtic Mist. They have reported on the animals stranding on our coasts, assisted IWDG researchers to successfully refloat stranded animals and recover others for post mortem.
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Become an IWDG Supporter
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Gareth Doherty IWDG Donegal
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Susie Matejka IWDG Bookkeeper
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Andrew Shine, MMO IWDG Consultancy
Membership
Gift Packs
Why not gift an Irish Whale and Dolphin Group membership or gift pack to your friends or family members to help support the work of the group.
Donations
You can support our work by making a donation to IWDG. Donations can be from as little or a much as you
would like and can be a once off or a yearly donation. Your support helps us continue our work of monitoring
and protecting species of whales, dolphins and porpoises that inhabit our waters. You can make a donation
through the following methods.
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Bank Transfer
*Please put your name as the reference on the transaction so we know who to thank.
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Cheque
*You can send a cheque, payable to IWDG, to the following address: Irish Whale & Dolphin Group, Merchants Quay, Kilrush, Co. Clare.
Adopt a Whale
or Dolphin
The IWDG have monitored the movements of individual bottlenose dolphins from the Shannon estuary since 1993 and humpback whales around the Irish coast since 1999 using photo-identification.
This technique has been instrumental in understanding when and how both species use our waters each year. While the Shannon dolphins remain within the estuary and the regions adjacent bays and coastline, our humpback whales are long distance travellers that have been recorded crossing vast areas of the North Atlantic.
