Media Coverage
West Cork’s whales in decline, but why?
We read with interest the interview with pelagic fisherman Ger Sheehy on the Southern Star in early June 2025 and wish to respond to some important issues raised in it.
The article suggests that observations of year-on-year declines in sprat by stakeholders such as local whale watch operations, anglers and inshore fishermen, whose livelihoods all depend to varying degrees on sprat, are somehow merely “anecdotal” and as such, not worthy of consideration. Yet we are expected to take the observations by a tiny number of large trawler owners of a northward shift in the distribution of sprat as somehow being…
Listen in: RTÈ’s Claire Byrne talks Sprat with Colin Barnes and Ken O’Sullivan
Sprat made the national airwaves in late May, when former Whale Watching Skipper Colin Barnes and leading Underwater Cameraman and Documentary Film-maker Ken-O’Sullivan Joined Claire Byrne on her mid-morning current-affairs show to discuss the staggering decline in marine wildlife off the West Cork coast, and the importance of Sprat in maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem.
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