The beauty, power and wonder of the sea as told by ex-fishermen, marine ecologists and environmental activists. In ‘Blue Carbon: A Sea Story’ Bairbre Flood takes to the sea with Colin Barnes, Cork Whale Watch, on an ethical whale and wildlife tour, and meets with marine biologist Shazia Waheed, lobster fisherman Kieran O’Shea, and volunteers with the Bantry Bay Protect Our Native Kelp Forest campaign, Dolf D’Hondt and Tomas O’Sullivan.
‘The kelp forests are the forest of the ocean, and they deserve to be treated with the same kind of care and with the same kind of foresight, as we do with the trees on land.’
– Tomas O’Sullivan, Bantry Bay Protect Our Kelp Forest
Niall MacAllistar of Sea Kayaking With The Seals brings us out to explore Adrigole Harbour, and Padraic Fogarty (Whittled Away: Ireland’s Vanishing Nature) of the Irish Wildlife Trust explains what can be done to help protect the seas, and why it’s vital let our oceans recover – from overfishing, pollution and the effects of climate change.
‘There is a massive shift that is needed – number one: in seeing the enormous importance that the ocean plays in our climate, as well as to individuals who enjoy the ocean every day. But also seeing that we really need to stop destroying it, day in, day out, and to allow it to recover.’
– Padraic Fogarty, IWT
Blue Carbon: A Sea Sory was broadcast on Documentary On Newstalk. Created with funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
BLUE CARBON: A SEA STORY TRANSCRIPT:
Shazia Waheed
We actually know more about surface of Mars or the moon, than we know about the ocean around us.
Niall MacAllistar
It’s colossal what the oceans give us. I mean, the oceans are our protector. Without the oceans we have nothing. If we don’t look after them everything else will disappear.
Tomas O’Sullivan
The kelp forests are the forest of the ocean, and they deserve to be treated with the same kind of care and with the same kind of foresight, as we do with the trees on land.
Padraic Fogarty
There is a massive shift that is needed – number one: in seeing the enormous importance that the ocean plays in in our climate, as well as to individuals who enjoy the ocean every day. But also seeing that we really need to stop destroying it, day in, day out, and to allow it to recover.
Bairbre Flood
Letting our oceans recover from overfishing, pollution, and the effects of climate change could be a priority for us, an island nation. But while much of the focus on the latter is on our actions on land, blue carbon is also a vital part of preventing ecological collapse. 83% of the carbon in the world circulates through our oceans, not just whales, dolphins and porpoises, but our kelp, seagrass beds and salt marshes are also valuable carbon stores.
Niall MacAllistar
The biodiversity that we have just seen here in this little cove that you’re looking at here now is colossal. And the carbon sequestering abilities of just even the kelp and the weed and stuff that you see here is colossal in compared to what terrestrial plants can can can do for us.
Bairbre Flood
Niall MacAllister is a marine biologist, and together with his wife Gail, set up ‘Kayaking With The Seals’ in Adrigole harbor, just beyond Glengarriff in West Cork.
Niall MacAllistar
Now are you okay there?
Bairbre Flood
Yeah, this is great. Thanks.
Bairbre Flood
We paddle out to see some of the seals, otters and birds that live in this beautiful harbor on the Beara Peninsula.
Niall MacAllistar
Most people don’t really tend to see the pups – certainly not the newborn pups – until they’re about maybe a month or two old. Where they pup – in loads of rack seaweed. So it’s very difficult to even spot them and they’ll just have their nose or nostril just popping up out of the water. So you’re highly unlikely to even see them unless you’re actually kind of hunting for them.
Niall MacAllistar
If you do get close to them at all, they will go into the water and hide.
Niall MacAllistar
I love it. I mean myself and my wife rocked up here over 28 years ago now. Yeah. I was working in Kinsale, she was working in Kinsale, I was working for the Oyster Center, she was working for Sail Ireland Yacht charters and we came down here and we said ‘oh look at this place!’
Bairbre Flood
We’re staying!
Niall MacAllistar
Yeah we’re staying, that’s it!
Niall MacAllistar
We have freshwater pearl mussels in the rivers here so it’s very clean harbor. And it also gives it gives multiple types of habitat as well – we’ve got (right over the top end here where we’re going to) on the north side is mud flats so that’s really really good for the the sort of lug worms and molluscs. And obviously by feeding on the mod they are cleaning out the mud and then those in turn that are fed on by lots of waders. Particularly in winter time here it’s good for waders. We get lots of mud waders and stuff coming in here.
Niall MacAllistar
And then as you move further out towards the outer back towards Bantry Bay itself, then you’ve got rocky shore. So the stuff rocky shore type of habitat, which is you know, lots of weed kelp and then feeding on that then it’s you and you’ve got all of the sort of shells and soft mollusks and stuff like that to feed on that and and then in turn obviously then you’ve got more animals that feed on those crabs and lobsters and things like that and, and then also it’s an area where where fish will spawn because the area out is the kelp kelp beds, seagrass beds, all of those kind of things are very, very important spawning grounds for for fish. Fish will actually come in here deliberately to spawn.
Bairbre Flood
Is this an area of special conservation or anything?
Niall MacAllistar
It’s not. It’s not an SAC at all – it’s not protected, a Specially Protected Area either.
Niall MacAllistar
See the guy at the top of the rock then I was looking, they come in now
Bairbre Flood
They look like like slugs.
Niall MacAllistar
They do yeah, they’re not very dexterous on land. In the water now they’re incredible. When you see them swimming, they’re just, I mean, unbelievably beautiful. When they’re, when they’re moving on the rocks. On the rocks, the only way they have the basis sort of like is, is clenching their stomach muscles. And that’s kind of how they move. See now they basically clench some muscles and they have movement in there for flippers, but their hind flippers don’t really do anything in the on land, but their hind flippers in the sea that’s where all the propulsion comes from
Bairbre Flood
Wow, look at them looking at us! Hi!
Niall MacAllistar
We need to sort of look at ourselves – look at our own and go wow, what do we got like is it is really really special.
Niall MacAllistar
If you get a chance to go underwater I mean, oh, swimming, I went for a swim this morning in in Lonehort, which is just at the back of Bere Island there. And we were just looking at the seabed – just the bottom of the seabed and it was just alive with animals. Like starfish and crabs and you know, all kinds of animals and you know, little guppies, fish and just like every time you moved a tiny piece of weed or something like that you’d be scaring like half a dozen fish.
Bairbre Flood
{splash} He’s in! It’s so funny, the way their heads just come up, you feel surrounded!
Niall MacAllistar
Do you see that little guy here? He’s a pup now. we see them now once they’re in the water. They can be very curious and they’ll come up. But when they’re on land, that’s when they’re obviously very susceptible to being predated on.
Bairbre Flood
Ok, so they feel vulnerable.
Niall MacAllistar
Obviously, they can’t move as quickly on land. But once they’re in the water. I mean, they’re just I mean it’s unbelievable see them when you see them swimming in the water.
Bairbre Flood
Oh my god, look how close he is.
Niall MacAllistar
The pup is very, very curious of us. And the mom was just kind of sort of ‘listen Don’t get too close now.’
Bairbre Flood
What noise do they make?
Niall MacAllistar
Sometimes like they kind of go, ‘ooooooooohhh’
Bairbre Flood
{Laughter}
Niall MacAllistar
And then occasionally that would be kind of snorting – if one has pulled up on a rock and somebody else decides that they want to be on the same rock that kind of snort that kind of at each other to just kind of snorting sand and then underwater is kind of at the kind of barking sand it’s very peculiar saying underwater sand that they make so we’ll head over to the island This is orphans island here now. We have you can see there there’s breeding birds on there.
Bairbre Flood
What are they called?
Niall MacAllistar
oystercatchers they’re called and they can be very noisy here especially if you go close to there. They’re breeding in there as well.
Bairbre Flood
It’s just unbelievable. Yeah, I thought maybe if we saw one or two, like be from a distance. I didn’t think they’d be that close.
Niall MacAllistar
Yeah. And I mean, like I say some days. You know, like you can see 30 or 40 of them.
Niall MacAllistar
We’ve got Kieran and Jason here, just sorting their catch out on the pier… They’re local fishermen. ‘Not too bad. Another beautiful day, isn’t it?’ (to Kieran)
Bairbre Flood
Thanks. Ye’re fishermen are ye? Have you done it like all your life?
Kieran O’Shea
And my granddad and everything yeah! So it’s really where you could say we’re a third generation I suppose.
Bairbre Flood
Did you catch much today?
Kieran O’Shea
Some brown crab and a few lobsters around the bay.
Bairbre Flood
what do you think about the plans to extract the kelp around here?
Kieran O’Shea
To be quite honest with you, we’re totally against it. We’ve been against it. Ever since the application had been or that we heard about this. It would be devastating to our fishery, really, because lobsters are in amongst the kelp. And we’ve, I suppose, in essence, it would be like taking away your house. That’s where the lobsters live. So if you take away their house, how’re they gonna survive, that means of surviving their you know. Their whole, the whole ecosystem of where they are.
Kieran O’Shea
Not alone are they going to take away the seaweed but they’re going to do terrible damage the fish that are around the seaweed, they’re all within the seaweed, you know, so it’s completely unnatural. And from our point of view, we will be 100% against it.
Niall MacAllistar
Anything we can do to, to keep this place as beautiful as it is, you know, keep the likes of Karen and Jason working here, myself and my family. You know, I mean, it’s been really booming in terms of quality of life for what is given myself, my family, my wife, my kids, and we really should be looking after it.
Bairbre Flood
Kayaking with the seals in Adrigole is open all summer. You can find them at Wild Atlantic wildlife.ie. Huge thanks to Niall MacAllister for bringing me out on the canoe.
Bairbre Flood
At the end there you heard fisherman Kieran O’Shea give his opinion on the plans to extract nearly 2000 acres of kelp from Bantry Bay. We’ll hear more about the campaign opposing this extraction in a few minutes. But first Paraic Fogarty, ecologist environmental scientist and campaigns officer for the Irish Wildlife Trust.
Padraic Fogarty
There’s a phenomenon called the shifting baseline syndrome. And that basically means that you know, the as we remember it in our lifetimes, we think that is healthy whereas we have no idea of what’s the abundance of the ocean was like a generation ago before that. And I mean, an example is for instance, I mean, I’m in my late 40s. I remember eating cod at least once a week. I live in Dublin that cod came from Howth, fish like waiting like place, these were eaten all the time, and now they’re simply not there anymore.
Bairbre Flood
Padraic Fogarty’s book ‘whittled away Ireland’s vanishing nature’ is a depressing read. He lays out the results of overfishing, destructive fishing practices like bottom trawling, where the entire seabed is dredged up. He also covers the extinction of our native oysters and many species of fish.
Padraic Fogarty
But even in that short few decades, we have emptied out to see and people don’t don’t realize that. Species like cod, which grows the size of a dinner table has basically ceased to exist from a commercial point of view and other still out there, but nobody misses them. Nobody feels that this is a great tragedy. You see campaigns for instance, about you know, saving the curlews on land. And, and this is this is obviously very important, but you don’t see any of those kinds of campaigns for fish in the sea, and they’re just as much wildlife as the birds and other animals that we have on land.
Bairbre Flood
I ask Fogarty how his ideas on rewilding could be applied to our seas.
Padraic Fogarty
It’s such an easy thing to do, basically, you just stop destroying it. And and and the life will come back to us. It is very strong lobbying by the fishing industry to maintain the status quo. And so for some reason, protecting the ocean hasn’t been a priority.
Bairbre Flood
Padraic Fogarty of the Irish Wildlife trust. We’ll hear more from Padraic later in the program. Back out west, I also met up with Dolf D’hondt. And Tomas O’Sullivan, of the Bantry Bay protect our native kelp forest group who’ve been active in this campaign for many years.
Dolf D’hondt
My name is Dolf D’hondt, and I’m from ‘Bantry Bay Protect our Native Kelp Forests’ campaign.
Bairbre Flood
They’re opposing a plan to suck up 2000 acres of native wild kelp, in order to extract two chemical compounds to add to pig feed. And according to Dan’s This is an untested method of taking out seaweed,
Dolf D’hondt
There is mechanical harvesting in Norway and in France, but they use different methods, this is the first time that a suction method has been used. And so basically, not only the seaweed get sucked up, but also everything that lives in it. And of course, there we have the problem, because we say there’s loads of life in it. And the developer says there’s nothing lives in there. One of the arguments that has been used by the developer in this case is that Bantry Bay is quite huge. Entropy is massive, and we’re only taking 2000 acres out of it. So that’s an argument that he’s putting forward saying, I’m only taking a tiny proportion of the size of the bee. And that’d be correct, but at the same time, kelp needs light to grow. It’s a seaweed, so it needs light to grow. And Bantry Bay is mostly 40 meters in depth, and seaweed grows to about 20 meters. So you get very little seaweed below 20 meters because of the light, it can’t get down there.
Dolf D’hondt
So basically, all of the seaweed is in the top 1015 meters, especially inside here and to be like it 1050 meters. And that’s it, he’s taking a small, tiny percentage if you take the whole area of debate, but if you look at the areas where the kelp or seaweed grows, and it’s under this study will take 2000 acres. So it’s a big proportion, if you look at it just where seaweed grows.
Dolf D’hondt
It all started, I suppose back in in February of 2017, when an eco a program called seaweed matters was aired. And basically people in Bantry saw this program and realize that they had no idea what was being proposed. And so then a small group started forming and that’s when it started building.
Bairbre Flood
Tomas O’Sullivan has also been active in the campaign to protect the kelp forest.
Tomas O’Sullivan
That was one of the the learning experiences for us, because officially, there was public consultation as mandated by law. But the public consultation as far as we can determine, consisted of a folder that was inside in the filing cabinet in the Garda station for three weeks over Christmas. And this is one of the things that has always annoyed me a small little notice in the southern start a local newspaper, which just said that bio Atlantis is applying for a license to occupy a certain part of the foreshore in order to harvest seaweed. And anybody who saw that, like in their right mind would read it and say, Oh, that’s someone just going down to a bit of the shore and maybe cutting a few 100 meters or something like that.
Tomas O’Sullivan
No mention of mechanical extraction, no mention of an experimental procedure, nor mentioned that this was almost 2000 acres at all. That was the public consultation. And of course, even if somebody had seen this tower, nobody went in looked at the file near like there was no knowledge in the community. From that little notice that this was what was being proposed. The only option we’ve had because this is a license granted, under the foreshore act 1933. The only option we have to appeal or to try and prevent going ahead is through the high court, you know, it shouldn’t be that difficult to mount a case to protect the ecosystem of our local environment.
Dolf D’hondt
One of the things that’s been talked about is SSCs. And SPS are special areas of conservation and special protection areas. And in in these licensed zones, you’re within a few centimeters of an sp on one side of the bay and an SSD on the other side of the beam. And technically what’s supposed to happen is supposed to have a thing called an appropriate assessment to judge whether there is a possible impact with or negative positive, but you’re supposed to do an appropriate assessment to see, you know, can this development have any or works have any impact on the SSE RSP.
Dolf D’hondt
And that was never done that was never carried out. And we argued in the High Court that this was a serious issue. And that if you look at the Habitats Directive 6.3 It states clearly that you should have a look at the impact. And so this still hangs up in the air but it is like I think very important from our point of view and from a European law point of European Environmental Law point of view that this is recognized that this should have been done and it wasn’t
Bairbre Flood
You have been quite successful so far would you say?
Dolf D’hondt
Yes, we have been very successful. I mean, one of the reasons why we’ve been successful is because it has brought together environmental types. It has brought together fishermen it has brought together conservatives and all political parties are behind us. There is nobody on the other side – except the developer.
Tomas O’Sullivan
You know, in some ways, the bay belongs to everyone in the community. I mean, we can get to we get up in the morning, we see what’s there in front of us so that there’s a sense of ownership all around the shore of the bay that like this is something we hold in common. Something that endangers the health and the safety of the bay is something that concerns all of us.
Tomas O’Sullivan
On the larger environmental question that like kelp is a carbon sink. So you know, it is a significant element of the fight against global warming the fight against climate change, as a planted photosynthesize as it sucks in the carbon dioxide and a lot of the kelp is washed out into the deep ocean buried in the mud. That’s how it functions as carbon sinks. So this proposal to hoover up to caught up 2000 acres but is not going to, you know, do do us any good at all on all kinds of levels.
Bairbre Flood
Yes, if somebody was about to cut down the equivalent of a forest the size of Phoenix Park, there’d be uproar.
Tomas O’Sullivan
And rightly so. Yeah, and in essence, it’s, I mean, the kelp forests are the forests of the ocean and they deserve to be treated and we deserve to be smart enough to treat them with the same kind of care and with the same kind of foresight as we do with the trees on land.
Bairbre Flood
That was the Tomas O’Sullivan and Dolf D’hondt of the Bantry Bay protect our native kelp forest campaign – you can find out more information at Bantry Bay kelp forest.com.
Padraic Fogarty
It’s not only trees that hold carbon but you know animals hold carbon as well. And if marine life was to be restored, you know that would store a huge amount of carbon as well as restoring the vitally important biodiversity in the oceans.
Bairbre Flood
Padraic Fogarty ecologist, environmental scientist and campaigns officer of the Irish Wildlife Trust, who you heard earlier in the program.
Padraic Fogarty
You know, it’s so obvious that this is one of the easiest quickest wins that we could do is to protect the ocean. Because remember, I mean, a lot of our efforts are focused on land, but the sea is three quarters of the earth nearly. It’s absolutely fast. And I think you know, protecting the ocean is probably the quickest, easiest thing we could do for climate and biodiversity.
Bairbre Flood
I asked him about the biggest threat that our seas are facing that of overfishing and destructive fishing practices and what he thinks could be done to stop them
Padraic Fogarty
80% of the boats in Ireland are small boats are and they’re not big super trawlers. They’re they’re not going far right to see the small boats, they tend to be catching, you know, crabs and lobsters. And they are potentially very low impact these smaller boats. So actually, I think you could you could close down industrial fishing so that’s the you know, the big boats without destroying fishing and without destroying the cultural heritage or the economic importance of fishing and on our coasts. But I think it is possible to end industrial fishing to create marine protected areas. You know, we’re no fishing at all is permitted and that would really allow marine life to recover. But at the moment at the the ocean really is a black hole. When it comes to our conservation efforts. We can look online And we can see what would be its small scale efforts to restore bogs, restore forests, or to farm in a nature friendly way. But once we get to the shoreline, absolutely nothing is happening. So this is quite a depressing area to work in if you’re if you’re looking at Marine Conservation.
Padraic Fogarty
Also, there is the impression that, you know, certainly the narrative over the last years has been, you know, Ireland joined the European Union, and then we basically gave our fishing rights to foreign countries. And, and the European Union has robbed us of all our fish. Now, there’s, there’s an element of truth to that. But that only applies to what’s known as the offshore area. So basically, beyond move depends maybe between six and 12 nautical miles, you’re into area of the Common Fisheries Policy, which is run by the EU, and which has been completely disastrous for marine life, but closer to the shore, that doesn’t apply. And the Irish government in the Irish state has an awful lot of control over what happens in that in that inshore area.
Padraic Fogarty
We absolutely need marine protected areas, we need to be protecting a minimum of 30% by the end of this decade, that is what the scientists say. But the scientists are actually thinking we probably need to be protecting about half of our of erosion in order to protect biodiversity. So we need to be designating large areas but of course designation on its own is a meaningless exercise, if you don’t get the actual management, and the control and the enforcement and all that the monitoring and all the other things that go with it. So it’s absolutely doable.
Padraic Fogarty
It’s a very quick win, in my view, but, but we just haven’t seen the political appetite to do it yet. And I mean, education is so central to all of these things. And we see that, you know, people actually do care about the ocean, you know, when, when they’re told about it, and they’re told, you know, this is what’s happening, people are not happy to see our governments, you know, actively pursue policies that are destroying them. And we’ve shown that I mean, we do, we did public consultation efforts around marine protected areas, and there was an enormous response. And it’s something that people want.
Padraic Fogarty
But again, we then run into just the old power structures about how these things happen, basically, a very small number of people that represent, you know, handful of commercial interests, handful of civil servants, basically deciding how the ocean is used and basically ignoring, you know, public opinion or the greater public good at the end of the day. There is a massive shift that is needed. Number one in seeing the enormous importance that the ocean plays in in our climates as well as to individuals who enjoy the ocean every day. But also seeing that we really needs to stop destroying it day in and day out and until allow it to recover.
Bairbre Flood
That was Padraic Fogarty, author of whittled away Ireland’s vanishing nature, and campaign manager for the Irish Wildlife Trust – iwt.ie
Shazia Waheed
So my name is Shazia, and I’m a marine biologist based at Lifetime lab.
Bairbre Flood
Shazia Waheed facilitates the explorers education program at the lifetime lab in Cork City, part of the explorers education program involves going out to schools and showing the children some of the many plants and creatures that live in the sea. They also help kids creative projects related to some aspect of the ocean.
Shazia Waheed
There could be anything about you know, general sea life too, as well as the threats facing the ocean like plastic pollution or overfishing. Otter margins were due to the what we call the workshop module. For that one, it’s realized because the kids come to us and we have a lovely set of with native sea life that we get a loan from Galway aquarium.
Shazia Waheed
And of course, we’d have the specimens again to show them a big map of the seafloor, your 3d map, you know, okay discuss with them the ocean depths, and I suppose the huge sea area we have offshore of Ireland, which they really enjoy, because we actually ever see or 10 times bigger than land area, which even the teachers and most adults will know about.
Shazia Waheed
And this year, actually, for the first time, we got to do sea safaris as well. So we got to bring a number of classes down to focus on beach and actually got them on the shore looking at what’s there. They wouldn’t have known, I suppose to look for the animals or they weren’t aware of the kind of diversity that was there, or how to go about finding them on the beach even, you know, quite a few teachers said this. The kids To tell the stories of what of how they brought their parents back to the beach afterwards, you know, and was able to point out the different elements to them, which was fine, you know, because that’s exactly what we want to hear it, you know, is that, you know, is that we maybe spark an interest in it from an early age.
Shazia Waheed
A few weeks ago, then, as well, also, for the first time this year, which was great. I did, it was run by West Cork Education Center, teacher training course, down in Bantry. And that was fab. So it was like a mixture of class and beach time, basically, you know, introduce them to the different seaweeds of animals so that they’re familiar with them, and that they’re confident, you know, to then bring it into the classroom and share what they’ve learned, you know, with the kids afterwards. Yeah, they seemed really interested, we had some great discussions in class, you know, about fisheries, and I suppose seafood and all sorts of wide range of different topics that are very currently on very relevant.
Shazia Waheed
There is a lot more diversity in the sea than there is on land. So I suppose, lends more to the imagination. And I think what’s great about that is like, I’ve never come across a class, you know, doing sports from that haven’t gotten really into, into into it and gotten really enthusiastic about it, you know, there’s just so many different shapes and sizes of different ocean animals that, you know, it really captures their imagination.
Shazia Waheed
It’s kind of just me raising awareness about how much we need us, you know, from the air we breathe to the water we drink, and the food we eat. I mean, it provides over half the oxygen we breathe. It’s basically a habitat for so many different life forms, which are still undiscovered, you know, and maybe void discovered about 5% of the ocean in total, which blows kids minds, you know, to say that when we say, look, we’ve actually know more about surface of Mars of the moon, than we know about the ocean around us. You know, it’s important for kids to see how important it is and how fragile it is, as well, you know, and I think it’s becoming more and more obvious, like the kind of, I suppose the damage you’re doing to the oceans. It was getting across the message that it’s not just damaging the ocean, but it’s also you know, damage to yourself ultimately as well.
Bairbre Flood
That was Shazia Waheed marine biologist with the lifetime lab in Cork. The Explorers program offers free courses to children and teachers in schools and coastal counties around Ireland, check out the Marine Institute marine.ie for details in your county. Staying in Cork, I’m heading out on a boat with Colin Barnes and his WhaleWatch tour.
Bairbre Flood
Whales plays such a vital role in the marine ecosystem, providing half of the oxygen we breathe. They also sequester hundreds of 1000s of tons of carbon each year. Colin has been involved in research projects with the Irish Whale and Dolphin group for many years.
Colin Barnes
I came here from the UK 50 years ago in October to take up fishing here which I did for 32 years and got fed up with it and decided to take up what we’re doing now. Whale watching.
Bairbre Flood
Why do you love it so much?
Colin Barnes
I had a passion for natural history from the word go – when I was a little kid out there on anything aquatic life then I found more fascinating than anything else. And because it was so unexplored and nobody could answer any questions. That appealed to me the idea that you’d be exploring what goes on underwater. And I was full of questions when I was a little kid that nobody could answer. So I set about teaching yourself, you know, what happens at sea.
Colin Barnes
Every chance I got I was down rummaging in rock pools and fish fishing rod and line fishing and things like that. Pushing shrimp nets about just just learning what lives in the sea map to the seabed air and fished all over it up to about 100 miles offshore. I love what I’m doing now every day is different. We never know what we’re going to see or where we’re going on any one day and if it was the same every day I’d get bored or think But it’s never boring. It’s like that you never know what you’re gonna say next.
Bairbre Flood
And if you spot things do you report them to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group?
Colin Barnes
Yeah, always. Yeah, every single sighting position and spaces I’ve wrote down for the last 22 years. And that’s useful because you have a chronological record of where and when there were animals about.
Bairbre Flood
do you think we do enough to protect them?
Colin Barnes
No, not at all. desperately short of marine protected areas, there’s now an organization called fair seas, they’re about to change over there. and Ireland is obliged as part of its agreements with Europe to have marine protected areas where species can flourish, you know, just protected from any destructive elements like fishing or anything else. That will change in the next year or two we hope.
Bairbre Flood
Starting from Rien pier union hall, we see lots of seals and seabirds as we set off. The last time out in the boat, I saw porpoises and a small basking shark but every trip is different…
Bairbre Flood
One really lovely aspect to this whale tour is Collins enthusiasm and knowledge about everything we see.
Colin Barnes
Something extraordinary about grey seals when you see went up the surface taking air when it dives it empties its lungs and dives with not wearing at all whales dolphins us you take a deep breath to go under.
Bairbre Flood
So how does that work when they get down?
Colin Barnes
They have super rich hemoglobin in their blood – about two and a half times what we have – they saturate themselves with oxygen and then exhale that and they’ve got 10 minutes under the water.
Bairbre Flood
Colin’s spotter – Ines – has just seen a Minke whale in the distance!
Bairbre Flood
Everyone on the board is in high alert scanning for the distinctive blow of water and air. We head further out to sea
Bairbre Flood
So many dolphins leaping alongside the boat and baby wants to try to jump like the bigger ones on kind of belly flop and into the water. What is it about dolphins that makes you feel so happy?
Bairbre Flood
They’ve a great life don’t they?
Colin Barnes
Don’t they ever – if you’re going to be reincarnated as animals – they spend all their lives having fun, eat when they’re hungry like we do round up some fish they’re experts.
Bairbre Flood
At this stage I could have gone home very happy but the day is going to get even better… Ines has just seen three Fin Whales ahead – we head in their direction at full throttle.
Colin Barnes
If anyone sees a blow – shout.
Bairbre Flood
Colin cuts the engine we scan again for the elusive flow of air and water
Colin Barnes
so much warmer than a shift. What kind of these are 3000 miles on them ever on planet Earth? A little bit slower. Everything that said tile grabbed fish they rolled over on one side. Frame whales are the only mammal on planet earth that’s asymmetrically marked for Sal Wally, this black when they go for fish it’s always Whiteside down there probably helps them get more fish in the mailand wait for dolphins to round up as shown and come in like that and rabbit with dolphins. Dolphins skitter along on top of them like they do with a boat
Bairbre Flood
It’s hard to describe how breathtaking they are – dubbed the Greyhounds of the sea for their speed and sleek bodies. They’re the second largest animal to ever live on Earth. The fin whale sounds are the lowest frequency sounds by any animal on earth. Of course, we can’t hear them now. But this is what they sound like – a recording by the US National Oceanic Administration where they speeded up the original sound 10 times.
Whale Sounds
Bairbre Flood
Eventually we start heading back to shore marveling at what we’ve just seen. And then…
Colin Barnes
just seen two killer whales!
Bairbre Flood
Again, everyone keeps a lookout for any blows.
Colin Barnes
Huge fins -round, pectoral totally round different to any other animal. Animals have pointed fins because they jump you’ll see their fins. Big round dark paddles. I was looking out and I saw these black things I was like what’s that? I’d to get binoculurs out to be sure.
Bairbre Flood
Colin radio’s the Irish Whale and Dolphin group and his friend Micheal who runs a whale watching boat out of Baltimore.
Colin Barnes
Yeah, just under 5124 969. Going west generally.
Bairbre Flood
The anticipation on the bold rises again.
Bairbre Flood
Colin cuts the engine and we watch these amazing creatures roll up, break the surface a few times and then dive again.
Bairbre Flood
If we’d a hydrophone and we’re underwater, this might be what we could hear right now. These recordings were made by the National Park Service in Alaska. Calls and whistles are used by the whales to communicate with each other. While clicks are mostly used in echolocation, a bit like bats and acoustic field of vision.
Whale Sounds
Bairbre Flood
Eventually, Colin has to turn the boat back towards shore. Everyone’s still slightly stunned that we saw not just Minke whales, but fin whales and killer whales, also known as orcas.
Bairbre Flood
Amazing day!
Colin Barnes
Couldn’t have been better. Hope no one’s got a plane to catch. I didn’t know that we’d stay a bit longer than that, but it was worth saying.
Colin Barnes
Oh we did watch fin whales one night in the dark but they weren’t doing much I was coming in from long range angling trip. And in the moonlight we could see them all blowing right in front of us. So just stopped and watched them for a minute – hey weren’t doing much just cruising slowly doing nothing.
Bairbre Flood
Thanks so much Colin, that was amazing!
Colin Barnes
Ahh, thanks to the whales.
People on the boat
{clapping}
Unknown Speaker
Woman on tour
Do you normally get buala bus? Clapping?
Colin Barnes
No (laughing)
Bairbre Flood
That was Colin Barnes of Cork Whale watch who operates out of union hall near Leap in West Cork. Thanks also to Shazia Wahid marine biologist with the Explorers program. Dolf D’hondt and Tomas O’Sullivan of the ‘Bantry Bay protect our native kelp forests’ campaign. Kieron O’Shea lobster fisherman, Niall MacAllister marine biologist who set up sea kayaking with the seals in Adrigole, West Cork, and Padraic Fogarty of the Irish Wildlife Trust, author of ‘whittled away Ireland’s vanishing nature’, who we’ll will leave with the final words…
Padraic Fogarty
We ultimately have to make it politically costly for politicians to ignore environmental protection like this. We need obviously, citizens to be active and aware but we also need politicians to get on and do the things that need to be done.
