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Community Wildlife Hide at Fishnish, Official Opening:
Sunday 19th Oct, 12-3pm.
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HWDT will also be attending the Annual Charities Fair held in Salen.
1st November, 2-4.
Come along and show your support, there will be tea, cake and much much more!
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A Killer Whale Sighted From Land and Sea, Just 200m off the Coast of Rum.
This individual was reported to us twice on the 10th September 2014 by the community, it appeared to be foraging at the time. Photo credit: Kevin Cuthbert.
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Joint Warrior
Silurian Sets Sail on her Final Trip of the Season (8/10/14 - 16/10/14)
- A Monitoring Survey of the UK's Largest Military Exercise!
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Exercise JOINT WARRIOR (JW) is a UK led exercise conducted in the Spring and the Autumn of each year. It is assessed that JW is the largest tactically focused exercise in Europe. At-sea operations are conducted for two weeks and up to 85 aircraft, 22 ships and 3 submarines can operate during this massive international exercise.
Military sonar, used during the exercises, emits intense loud noise that can disturb and harm whales and dolphins, which rely on their sensitive hearing to navigate, find food and communicate. Naval sonar, more commonly linked to mass strandings events of deep diving whales, has also been associated with minke whale strandings in the Bahamas and in North Carolina.
In the Spring 2010 JW exercise, HWDT observed two minke whales within one hour displaying unusual behaviour. At the same time HWDT was recording constant military sonar on the hydrophone. The whales were both moving in the same direction at high speed, regularly leaping clear of the water. This behaviour, known as ‘porpoising’, is rarely seen in undisturbed whales.
HWDT believe that it is incredibly important to monitor cetacean presence during these exercises. Expecially as we are the only organisation collecting long term monitoring data in this area and are therefore best placed to monitor the potential effect of naval activities. The military have made it clear to us that they do not wish to harm any cetaceans and are happy for us to monitor the exercise.
We wish all the staff and volunteers on board Silurian a good trip and will be interested to hear back about the data they record this survey. To follow Silurian's last trip of the year, keep an eye on the online blog which can be found on our website. http://www.whaledolphintrust.co.uk/blog.asp
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SeaChange Update
The First Road Show throughout the Inner Hebrides, Comes to a Close!
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The SeaChange team is back on Mull after a month of travelling to extraordinary places and meeting extraordinary people. We visited 10 coastal communities (Colonsay, Islay, Coll, Tiree, Easdale, Arisaig, Rum, Eigg, Elgol and Dunvegan) with only one location being dropped (Canna) due to the team being storm bound on Rum. Canna: we will see you next year instead.
In each location we gave a public talk and visited the local school. In total we had 164 people attending our talks and 229 school children are now experts on their local marine megafauna. One of the main objectives of the SeaChange project was to engage with local boat operators and conduct research into the whale watching industry. We met with 14 boat operators who all helped us in our research by completing questionnaires on the challenges facing the industry.
Many thanks to everyone who came to our talks and to the community trusts who hosted us in the village halls. Many thanks to all the schools and the students for their enthusiasm – it has given us great hope for the future. Also big thanks to everyone who helped with advertising and to our new local contact points.
Next year the SeaChange project continues with HWDT visiting the Outer Islands, Ullapool and Canna. We are already looking forward to it!
For more pictures from the tour – see the SeaChange album on Facebook.
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HWDT's Education Trip - A Great Success
Not only is Silurian a great research vessel but she also makes a great floating classroom!
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Silurian Along Side Salen Pier, Education Trip 2014.
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This year we welcomed five local schools on board, attempting to meet as many children from Mull as possible in a five day period. The workshops began at Salen Pier, where we welcomed both Lochdonhead School and Salen School on board. Whilst here, we also had visits from a couple of families and even made time to visit Salen Primary School itself, in order to meet the younger pupils. These sessions were great fun and we had some great feedback!
During the journey back up to Tobermory we were accompanied by a couple of Tobermory’s Guides and Scouts. This was a great opportunity to run through species ID, some the Trusts research and a number of other topics of interest, as well as eat Emma’s delicious cake!
We then ran two education days based in Tobermory, in conjunction with Tobermory Lifeboat and the Tobermory Marine Exhibition, which Dervaig and Ulva Primary School attended. By this point we had a very comprehensive touch tank, filled with all sorts of creatures from starfish, to crabs, to a sponge found on a bit of old rope. The children loved the lobsters – we had both a blue one and a rare red one, both of which were always making a splash! In addition to this, Claws – a giant edible brown crab, became a celebrity amongst the children and was constantly referred to in their blog entries. We also had a couple of impressive spider crabs, one of which has now taken up residence in the THA’s touch tank.
For our final day we visited Bunessan Pier, the trip down there was incredible, the sea completely flat calm and glassy as the sun shone overhead, with not as much as a breeze to disturb the water. The team saw porpoise after porpoise on the way down. Once alongside at Bunessan we welcomed three classes from the primary school on board, repeating the activities, introducing the pupils to Silurian, the Trust and the local marine wildlife.
It’s amazing how quickly the time flies when you’re having fun and before we knew it we were motoring back towards Mull, counting the porpoise as we went. All the crew arrived back in Tobermory, a wee bit tired, but with some great memories, looking forward to receiving the kid’s blog entries.
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All the children’s blog entries can now be found on the Silurian blog on our website. I would really encourage anyone interested to have a read as there are some great comments on there!
These are just a few of them;
‘Thank you for inviting us to visit your boat. I enjoyed being able to explore the boat. I also enjoyed feeling the sea animals. I wish we could have stayed later.’ Ellie, Lochdonhead PS.
‘I enjoyed every minute of the workshop of the Silurian! It was really exciting getting to hold all the crabs and starfish and seeing a lions mane jellyfish up close over the side of the boat.’ Laurence, P7, Salen PS.
‘I like all sea animals and I really enjoyed claws.’ Donald, Salen PS.
‘The starfish can grow its legs back’ Jovis, P1-3, Dervaig PS.
‘I enjoyed learning about the different sorts of dolphins, whales, porpoises and seals.’ Dervaig PS Pupil, P6.
‘I discovered that not all lobsters are blue.’ Dervaig PS Pupil, P5.
‘I touched the sea squirt and it felt like a rock.’ Ajay, P1, Ulva PS.
‘I learned what a hydrophone is used for and I learned that killer whales have different languages just like people.’ Arwen, P5, Ulva PS.
‘I liked to hold crabs and lobster because it was my first time.’ Bunessan PS Pupil.
HWDT would like to say a big thank you to Peter Stanhope for letting us come alongside Salen Pier and conduct our workshops, in addition to the fishermen, Steven Paterson and Iain Mackenzie for providing us with a wide range of touch tank beasties.
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Calendar Competition Winners
Thanks to everyone who made it to the calendar launch event! It was a great success, we all had a lovely time and hope you did too. Big thanks to all the children who entered, we're really proud of the calendar and all the pictures that we have displayed in our visitor centre.
The calendar is available to buy in our shop and online!
£7.99 plus £2 postage! http://www.whaledolphintrust.com/online-shop.asp.
Snap one up before they're all gone!
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