Latest news with #CelticSea
Irish Times
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Ban on inshore fishing of sprat to protect whales, birdlife and other sea mammals
The Government is introducing a de facto ban on industrial overfishing of sprat in Irish inshore waters in a move aimed at addressing changing migratory patterns of whales and dolphins as well as marine biodiversity loss. From October 1st vessels of more than 18m in length fishing for sprat within the six nautical mile zone will require authorisation and be subjected to a quota limit of 2,000 tonnes. This marks a significant change in management of Ireland's inshore fisheries, with the aim of protecting sensitive marine habitats and supporting the sustainability of key species, including sprat. Sprat are small fish indigenous to Ireland and a rich protein source for whales but also other cetaceans and seabirds. They dominate the inshore coastline in the Celtic Sea at shallow depths, making them especially vulnerable when trawlers fish for them at spawning stage from October on, with no limits on catch. READ MORE The move coincides with reports of fewer sightings of whales, dolphins and porpoises off the southwest coast, which is damaging ecotourism. [ 'It's an empty, lifeless sea': Whales leave Cork waters, putting watchers out of business Opens in new window ] Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity Christopher O'Sullivan welcomed the Government's new policy directive. 'This is a step forward for Ireland's marine environment and for the future of our marine wildlife. For too long, industrial overfishing of sprat has threatened the very foundation of our marine food web, putting whales, dolphins, and our much-loved seabirds like puffins and kittiwakes at risk,' Mr O'Sullivan said. [ Ireland to ratify high seas treaty and scale-up marine-protected areas, Taoiseach tells UN summit Opens in new window ] 'The measures agreed today, which amount to a de facto ban on industrial trawling of sprat in our inshore waters, are the result of an extensive public consultation process and careful consideration of the best available scientific advice.' Sprat, a small but vital forage fish, is the lifeblood of Ireland's marine ecosystem, Mr O'Sullivan said. 'The collapse of sprat stocks would have devastating consequences [for species], which are already in steep decline due to food shortages and habitat loss.' This decision also ensured inshore waters were protected for smaller fishing vessels and recreational fishers. In 2019 government efforts to introduce a ban were successfully challenged in the courts. In 2024 a public consultation invited views on introducing the ban again. It attracted more than 5,500 submissions.
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Country diary: Enter dolphins, stage left, ripping apart the limpid sea
Eventide, and calm waters were slowly departing the warm sands of a small Ynys Môn (Anglesey) bay. The dark igneous rocks that bound the bay had retained some midsummer heat, providing a comfortable vantage point to enjoy the sunset. In the shallows, a lone spectator watched the deep pink of the sea. My eyes followed hers and landed on two grey seals, their heads implanted in the iridescent waters. They watched, we watched, then they lazily slipped below, hardly a ripple raised. Enter the Risso's dolphins. A pod of four surfaced stage left, injecting the scene with breathtaking energy; their stout, torpedo-shaped, pale grey bodies surging forth, tall dark dorsal fins ripping the limpid sea apart. One after another, they breached clear of the water, their power and scale full blown, heightened by the intimacy of the bay. A thrilling display – but also, scientifically, a purposeful, non-verbal signal of their intrinsic fitness to potential mates and competitors. In midsummer, Risso's migrate from the pelagic deeps into the relatively shallow shelf waters of the Celtic Sea, perhaps providing more opportunities for social interactions. Within moments it seemed the pod had motored beyond the compass of the bay, leaving its waters calm again. You might care to imagine, however, to what degree those leaps of nature perturbed the ocean, and briefly brought additional wavelets to the shore, swashing the sand in pearly, tingly froth and the sound of shell upon shell. Dolphin energy bathing the spectator's feet and sounding the maritime air with echoes of sea creatures. The spectator and I wandered home across the dunes. In the half light, the parabolas of marram grass loomed large. In the slacks, a midsummer night's dream: thousands of marsh helleborines, their pale pink and cream blooms waxing in the waning light, their frilly lips as light as tissue. Research has demonstrated that helleborine flowers attract diurnal pollinators – solitary wasps, bumblebees, hoverflies – in part due to aromatics in their nectar, such as vanillin. But few if any researchers appear to have wandered these dunes at night in search of nocturnal pollinators such as moths – they should; it might help unlock some of the remaining mysteries of pollination. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
Reuters
19-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Equinor and Gwynt Glas win UK floating offshore wind leases
LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Equnior ( opens new tab and Gwynt Glas, a joint venture between EDF Renewables UK and ESB, have won seabed leases to build floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea off the coast of Wales and South West England, The Crown Estate said on Thursday. Britain is aiming to largely decarbonise its electricity sector by 2030 to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and drive down cost and is seeking to increase offshore wind capacity to 43-50 gigawatts (GW) by the end of the decade, from around 16 GW at present. 'Floating offshore wind will be transformative for economic growth in Wales and the South West, unlocking thousands of jobs in places like Port Talbot and Bristol, bolstering our energy security and delivering industrial renewal,' Britain's Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said in the Crown Estate press release. The Crown Estate, which acts as manager of the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said Equnior and Gwynt Glas had both won leases giving them the rights each to build 1.5 gigawatt (GW) floating wind projects in its latest seabed leasing round. The companies will pay 350 pounds ($468.55) per megawatt per year for the leases, the Crown Estate said, meaning both groups will pay 525,000 pounds per year for the sites excluding VAT. Floating wind projects can be installed in deeper waters than fixed-bottom foundations, harnessing stronger and more continuous wind to generate more power. The Crown Estate is an independently run, commercial business, whose profits go to the Treasury but its profits are also used as the benchmark for the level of public funding for the Royal Family. ($1 = 0.7470 pounds)
BBC News
30-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Portsmouth uni and GB Row Challenge research finds UK seas are warming
Data, collected by rowers who circumnavigated Great Britain and analysed by university researchers, has found that sea temperatures have risen.A report by the University of Portsmouth and GB Row Challenge found UK seas were, on average, 0.39C (32.7F) warmer in 2023 compared to data was collected by a crew who took part in the 2023 GB Row Challenge which saw participants travel more than 2000 miles (3219 km) around of environmental pollution at the University of Portsmouth, Fay Couceiro, said: "We expect fluctuations but we don't want to see this increasing number of marine heatwaves." Some regions, including the Celtic and Irish Seas and the northern North Sea, experienced temperature increases exceeding 2C (35.6F), during a marine said the data gives an important indication of the health of our oceans."Understanding it allows us to better protect the species that are there," she added that sessile organisms like mussels and oysters, which are unable to move themselves to cooler waters. were most affected by the rising temperatures. Environmental DNA, underwater sound and microplastic data was also collected by the the surprising findings was a fragment of Bakelite plastic found in Clacton-on-Sea north of the Thames was the first commercially produced synthetic plastic, which was widely used in the early 1900s and largely discontinued in the 1940s."Despite being phased out of production decades ago, this possible century-old relic has persisted, highlighting how plastics can linger in ecosystems for generations," Ms Couceiro said."This longevity contributes to the accumulation of microplastics, which infiltrate our soils, waterways, and even the food chain, posing risks to both environmental and human health. The finding serves as a reminder of the urgent need for sustainable materials and robust waste management practices to address the escalating global plastic crisis." 'Citizen science' Team Ithaca, an all-female rowing crew, were responsible for gathering the group also went on to become the fastest female team to row around Great Row Challenge founder, William de Laszlo said: "Team Ithaca's expedition highlights the potential of citizen science in contributing to environmental research."Their dedication and resilience have not only set a new benchmark in ocean rowing but have also provided critical insights into the challenges facing Britain's coastal waters." You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Marguerite Weyer, air mechanic with the WRNS who worked on the Seafire and Bristol Beaufighter
Marguerite Weyer, who has died aged 96, was a Wren air mechanic who helped keep the Fleet Air Arm flying from remote coastal stations in the postwar years. Many young women who volunteered for the Women's Royal Naval Service towards the end of the Second World War and afterwards were assigned as air mechanics, specialising in engines, airframes, electrical or ordnance. Marguerite Warden (as she was before marriage) was an art student in Hull in 1946 when she spent an 18th-birthday present of £5 from her father on a train ticket to Newcastle, where she signed on at a naval recruiting office – and told her parents afterwards. Trained to service the Merlin (and later Griffon) engine of the Supermarine Seafire – an adaptation of the Spitfire fighter for use on aircraft carriers – she was posted first to RNAS Dale, also known as HMS Goldcrest, facing the Celtic Sea on the Pembrokeshire coast. Self-made entertainment on the base included amateur dramatics, with productions of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit and Hay Fever; as their leading man, the Wrens co-opted 'a pink-faced schoolie [education officer] fresh from Cambridge' with theatrical connections – the young David Attenborough on National Service. After her eyesight faded in old age, Marguerite invariably greeted television's most unmistakable voice with: 'Ah, my old friend David…' In her four years as an air mechanic she also worked on the heavier Bristol Beaufighter, occasionally taxied aircraft between apron and hangar, and was promoted to Leading Wren. At HMS Nuthatch, a 'receipt and dispatch unit' which prepared new aircraft for operational use at Anthorn on the Solway Firth, and at Evanton (HMS Fieldfare) on the Cromarty Firth, winter was harsh and quarters were spartan; a bout of pneumonia and pleurisy in early 1949 gave Marguerite welcome respite in a warm sickbay. She left to marry the following year but the camaraderie of service remained a vivid memory, and her gang of Wren friends, of whom she was the last survivor, were in touch for the rest of their lives. Marguerite Warden was born on June 19 1928 at Hornsea on Yorkshire's east coast and was brought up in Bridlington. She was the fourth child of Laurence Warden, an insurance manager in Hull and a noted watercolour painter, and his wife Daisy, née Jobson, whose antecedents were Danish. When German bombs began falling on Bridlington, Marguerite spent an idyllic summer of 1940 evacuated to Kirkbymoorside in the North Riding with her mother and sister, their father joining at weekends for painting expeditions on the North York Moors. She returned to complete her school certificate at Bridlington High School for Girls, and towards the end of the war she was allowed to join Saturday dances at the Spa Ballroom, with servicemen billeted around the town. She recalled the heel-clicking gallantry of a Polish cadet called Zbicek and the frisson of teenage romance with William Franklyn, a Parachute Regiment soldier later famous as the velvet-voiced actor of the 1970s Schweppes tonic water adverts ('Schhh… you know who'). A promising artist, she enrolled in 1945 at Hull College of Arts and Crafts but found its old-fashioned focus on still-life drawing too staid; she would have preferred the more avant-garde Leeds school, but her mother would not let her go into lodgings. Instead Marguerite opted for the adventure of the Wrens until her marriage in 1950 to Deryk Vander Weyer – a Bridlington neighbour, wartime Green Howards officer, and at that time a junior bank official. When he asked for her hand in the traditional way, her father was sufficiently impressed to remark that 'this young man could be a branch manager one day.' In fact Deryk rose to be deputy chairman of Barclays and British Telecom and a director of the Bank of England. Their 40-year marriage involved 10 house moves and, in later years, a full diary of receptions, City banquets and global travel. Marguerite rose with style to every occasion, but was always happiest amid friends, flowers and dogs, and absorbed in her love of art history. Deryk Vander Weyer died in 1990. In a widowhood of almost 35 years, Marguerite made a new life as an elegant grand dame of the town of Helmsley in North Yorkshire, where she made a lovely memorial garden (within the public Helmsley Walled Garden) for their daughter Linda, an artist and teacher who died in 2006. She is survived by their son, the Spectator columnist Martin Vander Weyer. Marguerite Weyer, born June 19 1928, died May 12 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
