Another Life: This weekend's full moon will draw the tides to their furthest splash up the cliffs of Ireland's big headlands. It won't actually pull the whales and dolphins any closer, but the extra stir of sea-music won't come amiss for tomorrow's Whalewatch Ireland, writes Michael Viney.
Last year, more than 1,200 people turned out with their binoculars, sandwiches and something to sit on, and enough got a glimpse of offshore cetaceans, along with seals, sunfish and seabirds, to make the day memorable. Even those who watched in vain enjoyed learning about the possibilities from the enthusiasts of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (for tomorrow's gatherings, at eight headlands from Cork to Antrim, check the website http://www.iwdg.ie).
Hopes will be highest on the coast of west Cork, where Galley Head is tomorrow's main rendezvous and Padraig Whooley the attending expert. In four years of land-based monitoring, his reports have dramatically exceeded all expectations. They have attracted whale-watchers from the UK and have set the scene for the IWDG's first international whale conference in September.
"Míol Mór" will bring together the foremost experts on fin and humpback whales, whose regular presence so close to Ireland's southern coast has startled everyone. It opens up a whole new arena of study in the island's natural history - and, of course, great potential for whale-watching tourism. Greg Donovan, head of science at the International Whaling Commission, will be advising the conference on the "management" of the whales - by which is meant, I hope, the management of human encounters with them.
Already, this summer has offered some splendid sightings at sea. Within recent weeks, groups of up to 10 fin whales (the world's second-largest animal) have been exhaling mighty sighs in tall, fishy-smelling "blows" in Clonakilty Bay. West Cork's first whale-watching charter skipper, Colin Barnes at Reen Pier, made 180 trips last year.
On the east coast, unprecedented whale activity off the Dublin-Wicklow coast began at the end of May, when six minke whales (the smallest baleen whale) and at least one fin whale, spouting blows that could be seen a mile away, were brought close to the Kish Bank by a huge shoal of sprat. The minkes could be seen from Howth Head and Dalkey. Further south, the big Risso's dolphins have been observed from the coast at Greystones.
Sightings of big whales off the south coast are increasing all the time, beginning usually in June and peaking in November. Is this due just to "increased observer effort" or are there really more of the animals about? An IWDG expert team (Simon Berrow, Geoff Oliver, Cilian Roden and Padraig Whooley) recently reported to the Heritage Council, which funded their research in 2003.
The waters off west Cork are fascinating, with complex "fronts" of plankton nourished by the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water. There are sometimes exceptional blooms of planktonic algae, especially in mid and late summer, when plankton is scarce off other Irish coasts. Knowing more of how this ecosystem works should make it easier to predict where and when whales can be watched.
The team sampled widely: sea temperatures and salinity, plankton species, fish density, seabird action - even, with a biopsy dart, the blubber of the well-photographed humpback whale that has come back to west Cork at least four consecutive years. They want to find out whether the same whales are returning each year, or whether there is a turnover of whales using the south coast - to quote Simon Berrow - "as a transport cafe." In the team's 10 days at sea there were 47 encounters with eight kinds of whales and dolphins. Each time, the team counted the seabirds feeding in the same area - a big gathering of diving gannets and other birds has long been a flag to where cetaceans are feeding. But while this indeed held true for minke whales, common dolphins and harbour porpoises, it didn't work for the big fin and humpback whales, which were feeding on shoaling fish at depths of up to 60 fathoms, well out of the birds' reach.
In October, the team hopes to fix time-depth recorders to fin whales to record their diving, and to correlate this with the distribution of fish: there's much more study to be done before whale-watching boats, full of out-of-season tourists, can confidently head for the nearest squadron of leviathans. September's conference, too, will add authoritative wisdom from the big names in whale research in America, England and Scotland.
Míol Mór 2004 International Whale Conference will be held in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery, Co Cork on September 24th to 26th. For further information, Tel: 087-2388433 or e-mail Frances.Bermingham@iwdg.ie.