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Displaying items by tag: Otters

The otters of Cork get a tribute in a new documentary that gets its online premiere this Tuesday 2 February at 7pm.

Made by the Cork Nature Network with funds from The Heritage Council among others, Cork Otters explores the lives of these elusive marine wildlife residents of the River Lee.

Free tickets for this Zoom screening — featuring a discussion and Q&A with an expert panel — are already booked out. But you can get in touch to enquire about the waiting list in case more viewing spots become available.

Published in Marine Wildlife

#MarineWildlife - 'Poison Ivy' the seal pup is now in good hands after she was found on the streets of Galway by council workers earlier this month.

As the Galway Independent reports, the young seal was discovered on the footpath in Salthill by litter collectors and was cared for locally by vets, members of the public and volunteers with Galway & Claddagh Swan Rescue.

She has since been transferred to the Seal Rescue Ireland sanctuary in Wexford, where she is said to be thriving after treatment for dehydration and malnourishment, an eye infection and a number of infected wounds.

It's thought that since she still had half of her lanugo fur coat, she was less than three weeks' old when found – "so there is a good chance that little Poison Ivy was separated from her mom too early," said the sanctuary's manager Meadow Greenwood.

As for the name? It's part of a comic book theme at the sanctuary, which earlier in the year played host to the like of Blackbird, a seal rescued in Co Louth, and Mystique from Co Mayo, according to the Gorey Guardian.

In other marine wildlife news, there has been anger in Northern Ireland after an otter was found killed in a trap on a riverbank in Co Antrim last weekend.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, the PSNI is investigating the incident on the banks of the Sixmilewater River at Dunadry as the placement of the trap "suggests a deliberate attempt to target the otter" – a protected species at EU level.

And as a member of the Antrim and District Angling Association alleges, whether or not the trap itself is legal is irrelevant as its placement was not.

"There is a residential development backing onto that area ... A cat or a dog or a young child could have been caught in that trap."

The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.

Published in Marine Wildlife

Galway Port & Harbour

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city and port is located on the northeast side of the bay. The bay is about 50 kilometres (31 miles) long and from 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) to 30 kilometres (19 miles) in breadth.

The Aran Islands are to the west across the entrance and there are numerous small islands within the bay.

Galway Port FAQs

Galway was founded in the 13th century by the de Burgo family, and became an important seaport with sailing ships bearing wine imports and exports of fish, hides and wool.

Not as old as previously thought. Galway bay was once a series of lagoons, known as Loch Lurgan, plied by people in log canoes. Ancient tree stumps exposed by storms in 2010 have been dated back about 7,500 years.

It is about 660,000 tonnes as it is a tidal port.

Capt Brian Sheridan, who succeeded his late father, Capt Frank Sheridan

The dock gates open approximately two hours before high water and close at high water subject to ship movements on each tide.

The typical ship sizes are in the region of 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes

Turbines for about 14 wind projects have been imported in recent years, but the tonnage of these cargoes is light. A European industry report calculates that each turbine generates €10 million in locally generated revenue during construction and logistics/transport.

Yes, Iceland has selected Galway as European landing location for international telecommunications cables. Farice, a company wholly owned by the Icelandic Government, currently owns and operates two submarine cables linking Iceland to Northern Europe.

It is "very much a live project", Harbourmaster Capt Sheridan says, and the Port of Galway board is "awaiting the outcome of a Bord Pleanála determination", he says.

90% of the scrap steel is exported to Spain with the balance being shipped to Portugal. Since the pandemic, scrap steel is shipped to the Liverpool where it is either transhipped to larger ships bound for China.

It might look like silage, but in fact, its bales domestic and municipal waste, exported to Denmark where the waste is incinerated, and the heat is used in district heating of homes and schools. It is called RDF or Refuse Derived Fuel and has been exported out of Galway since 2013.

The new ferry is arriving at Galway Bay onboard the cargo ship SVENJA. The vessel is currently on passage to Belem, Brazil before making her way across the Atlantic to Galway.

Two Volvo round world races have selected Galway for the prestigious yacht race route. Some 10,000 people welcomed the boats in during its first stopover in 2009, when a festival was marked by stunning weather. It was also selected for the race finish in 2012. The Volvo has changed its name and is now known as the "Ocean Race". Capt Sheridan says that once port expansion and the re-urbanisation of the docklands is complete, the port will welcome the "ocean race, Clipper race, Tall Ships race, Small Ships Regatta and maybe the America's Cup right into the city centre...".

The pandemic was the reason why Seafest did not go ahead in Cork in 2020. Galway will welcome Seafest back after it calls to Waterford and Limerick, thus having been to all the Port cities.

© Afloat 2020