News
National Whale and Dolphin Watch 2018 is most successful yet! (Watch Video)
As the National Whale & Dolphin Watch concludes for another year, organisers are calling the 2018 event the most successful yet with an unprecedented variety of whale and dolphin species recorded around the UK during last week. Thirteen species and more than 500 sightings have been reported, and sightings continue to stream in.
“This looks like being the best National Whale & Dolphin Watch event of the last two decades,” reported Dr Chiara Giulia Bertulli, organiser of this year’s national event for the UK national research charity, Sea Watch Foundation.
The 2018 National Whale and Dolphin Watch event involving thousands of volunteers from all around the British Isles, conducted between 28th July and 5th August, has revealed the striking biodiversity of Britain’s Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises.
This summer has seen a good number of humpback whale sightings all around the UK, with individuals popping up this last week in the North Sea off the Aberdeenshire coast and off Flamborough Head in Yorkshire. This species is making a noticeable come-back after many decades of exploitation in the North Atlantic.
“However, the most extraordinary sighting from this year’s Watch week”, adds Chiara, “was surely the Sowerby’s beaked whale which live stranded in the shallow waters of Belhaven in East Lothian, Scotland, on July 29th. This year also saw the addition of the striped dolphin, which in Britain and Ireland, is very rare, seen occasionally off the Atlantic coasts mainly in the south-west of Ireland. This species of warm temperate seas came to the shore at Pendine in South Wales on July 31st.”
Watch this video of short-beaked common dolphins filmed three miles off Dodman Point in South Cornwall.
Video: Rupert Kirkwood / thelonerkayaker:
At the time of writing, a total of 527 sightings have been submitted after the 9-day event. With regards to number of species recorded, results show that records at this stage are up 50% on last year. Cetacean data collection is strongly weather dependant. Factors such as sea state, swell height and visibility to the horizon affect how easily animals can be detected during a watch. Heavy rain and wind can even cause watches to be cancelled altogether.
For these reasons, every year, the volunteers rely heavily on good weather conditions for the success of National Whale and Dolphin Watch. Like previous years, this year’s event was scheduled over nine days to increase the chances of coinciding with a favourable weather window. The weather forecast at the beginning of the event was very poor with frequent showers and strong winds around the country which forced several watches to be cancelled and to be rescheduled to this past weekend. However, once the weather stabilized and the temperature increased the number of sightings increased dramatically and it showed.
Possible explanations for this summer’s high number of cetacean species sighted during this year’s event are the good stable weather recorded this summer, with high temperatures which brought in warmer water species like striped dolphin, and created the conditions for plankton fronts to develop, attracting shoals of fish and in turn, whales and dolphins.
“We are seeing a general longer term trend,” adds Chiara, “for warm water species to be extending their range further north – species like the short-beaked common dolphin and the Risso’s dolphin as well as the striped dolphin. Since a greater number of species live in warm waters, the effects of climate change can actually be positive at mid latitudes such as around the British Isles.”
“We should still be a little cautious,” says Dr Peter Evans, Director of the Sea Watch Foundation. “Although new species of cetaceans have been added recently to the British list of mammals, there are more northern species that we could lose from our fauna – species like Atlantic white-sided dolphin and white-beaked dolphin, and the problem with tropical and warm temperate species entering our seas is that they face a much wider range of human pressures along the industrialised coastlines of northern Europe.”
All the verified sightings so far can be viewed online – www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/nwdw-2018 – where they are updated as more reports come in.
News
Dive Worldwide Announces Bite-Back as its Charity of the Year
Over the next 12 months, specialist scuba holiday company Dive Worldwide will be supporting Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation with donations collected from client bookings to any one of its stunning dive destinations around the world. The independently-owned operator expects to raise £3000 for the UK charity.
Manager at Dive Worldwide, Phil North, said: “We’re especially excited to work with Bite-Back and support its intelligent, creative and results-driven campaigns to end the UK trade in shark products and prompt a change in attitudes to the ocean’s most maligned inhabitant.”
Bite-Back is running campaigns to hold the media to account on the way it reports shark news along with a brand new nationwide education programme. Last year the charity was credited for spearheading a UK ban on the import and export of shark fins.
Campaign director at Bite-Back, Graham Buckingham, said: “We’re enormously grateful to Dive Worldwide for choosing to support Bite-Back. The company’s commitment to conservation helps set it apart from other tour operators and we’re certain its clients admire and respect that policy. For us, the affiliation is huge and helps us look to the future with confidence we can deliver against key conservation programmes.”
To launch the fundraising initiative, Phil North presented Graham Buckingham with a cheque for £1,000.
Visit Dive Worldwide to discover its diverse range of international scuba adventures and visit Bite-Back to learn more about the charity’s campaigns.
MORE INFORMATION
Call Graham Buckingham on 07810 454 266 or email graham@bite-back.com
Gear News
Scubapro Free Octopus Promotion 2024
Free Octopus with every purchase of a SCUBAPRO regulator system
Just in time for the spring season, divers can save money with the FREE OCTOPUS SPRING PROMOTION! Until July 31st SCUBAPRO offers an Octopus for free
with every purchase of a regulator system!
Get a free S270 OCTOPUS with purchase of these combinations:
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with A700
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with S620Ti
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with D420
MK25 EVO Din mit S620Ti-X
Get a free R105 OCTOPUS with purchase of the following combinations:
MK25 EVO or MK19 EVO with G260
MK25 EVO or MK17 EVO with S600
SCUBAPRO offers a 30-year first owner warranty on all regulators, with a revision period of two years or 100 dives. All SCUBAPRO regulators are of course certified according to the new European test standard EN250-2014.
Available at participating SCUBAPRO dealers. Promotion may not be available in all regions. Find an authorized SCUBAPRO Dealer at scubapro.com.
More information available on www.scubapro.com.
-
News3 months ago
Hone your underwater photography skills with Alphamarine Photography at Red Sea Diving Safari in March
-
News3 months ago
Capturing Critters in Lembeh Underwater Photography Workshop 2024: Event Roundup
-
Marine Life & Conservation Blogs3 months ago
Creature Feature: Swell Sharks
-
Blogs2 months ago
Murex Resorts: Passport to Paradise!
-
Blogs2 months ago
Diver Discovering Whale Skeletons Beneath Ice Judged World’s Best Underwater Photograph
-
Gear Reviews2 weeks ago
GEAR REVIEW – Revolutionising Diving Comfort: The Sharkskin T2 Chillproof Suit
-
Marine Life & Conservation2 months ago
Save the Manatee Club launches brand new webcams at Silver Springs State Park, Florida
-
Gear Reviews3 months ago
Gear Review: Oceanic+ Dive Housing for iPhone