News from the IWDG Consulting Team

The Shannon Estuary is a busy waterway and has a very high nature conservation value.

Over the last two years the level of increase in the estuary, especially its deep-water berths and potential to support the developing offshore renewable industries, has been massive. Both the ESB at Moneypoint through their Green Atlantic Hub and Shannon-Foynes Port Company have promoted their strategic importance along the western seaboard of Ireland. When you also consider the proposal to build a Shannon Technology and Energy Park at Ardmore Point, Co Kerry including an LNG terminal, there is a lot of pressure on the estuary.

The IWDG have been monitoring the Shannon dolphin population since 1993, making it one of the longest running dolphin monitoring projects in Europe. With such an intimate knowledge of the estuary and a long-term dataset, IWDG Consulting are uniquely placed to input into environmental assessment and interpretation and “represent” the dolphins interests.

IWDG Consulting are currently contracted to a number of projects in the estuary and are carrying out regular boat based marine mammal and seabird surveys, static acoustic monitoring and Vantage point surveys. we thank the ESB, New Fortress Energy, Natural Power and GDG for contracting IWDG Consulting to provide this input into the future of the Shannon Estuary.

IWDG Consulting won both tenders issued by the National Parks and Wildlife Service this year for monitoring dolphins and porpoise in Special Areas of Conservation (SAC). One was for Harbour Porpoises surveys in the Rockabill to Dalkey Island SAC off the east coast and one for bottlenose dolphin mark-recapture abundance estimate in the West Connacht Coast SAC. The latter is the first attempt to deliver a consistent and repeatable survey design with outputs sufficient for reporting.

IWDG Consulting have delivered all harbour porpoise SAC surveys for the NPWs since 2007 and this will be our third survey of the Rockabill to Dalkey Island SAC. It will be interesting to see if densities are consistent with previous surveys. The West Connacht Coast SAC monitoring contract is more challenging as surveys need to be carried out from two ports simultaneously with two teams of surveyors. A challenge IWDG Consulting is well up for

These surveys are required as part of the governments reporting obligations to Europe and typically occur every 3 years in each SAC.

IWDG Consulting are carrying out marine mammal monitoring as part of the AFLOWT project funded by SEAI. The project hopes to deploy a full-scale Floating Offshore Wind Device in 2023, subject to planning and environmental assessment.

We are carrying out Static Acoustic Monitoring at Berths A and B and photo-id of bottlenose dolphins. We took the opportunity this week to produce a short video explaining the work

https://vimeo.com/537451739/08e2f30c11

Photographing bottlenose dolphins for photo-id off the Mullet peninsular, Co Mayo

Meadhbh Quinn is one of IWDG Consulting leading MMOs. She has been working with us for many years and currently works on the Dublin port ABR Capital Dredging Programme and the AFLOWT project. She was recently featured by the Women Offshore Foundation, also known as Women Offshore​, which is an online organization and resource center supporting a diverse workforce on the water.

https://womenoffshore.org/protecting-marine-mammals-offshore-with-meadhbh-quinn/