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Sea Monitor

Proposed funding:  €4.7m  INTERREG V

 

This is an INTERREG V application built around writing a number of management plans for marine protected areas and producing models. We are waiting on the Letter of Offer to be issued. The total proposed budget is €4.7m. The Loughs Agency is lead partner with our other partners being:

  • AFBI
  • Marine Institute
  • University of Glasgow
  • Queens University Belfast
  • University College Cork
  • Galway, Mayo Institute of Technology
  • Ocean Tracking Network (Canada)
  • UC Davis (California)

The project aims to investigate migration of mobile marine species through the use of acoustic tracking technology and would follow up on the IBIS studies which highlighted a potential loss of salmon and eels on their migration through Lough Foyle.  It would also deliver core aspects of the Loughs Agency’s Science Strategic Plan, such as partitioning out the early marine survival of salmon which is also a NASCO priority.  NASCO have identified the Malin / Islay gateway as one of the priority areas for an acoustic array to be positioned as it could potentially monitor movements of smolts out of the Irish Sea as well as the AFBI / DAERA ICES Index River Bush.  The Malin / Islay gateway has also been identified as priority by the European Tracking Network and is one of 6 such areas to be highlighted across Europe.

The project proposes setting up an acoustic network around the north coast of Ireland and west coast of Scotland in conjunction with 2 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV’s) on the continental shelf (Figure 1).  In addition a number of hydrophones would be deployed to investigate cetacean presence and distribution and grey seals tagged in two locations on the Mayo coast and Inishtrahull a small island off Malin Head in Co Donegal.

The proposed receiver locations are Loch Lomond and Clyde estuary, Rathlin Island to Antrim coast, R Bush, River and Lough Foyle, Malin Head to Islay, receivers in each of the following estuaries Boyne, Liffey, Lee, Burrishoole and Erne.

We are looking to tag salmon and trout and an additional 4 species.  Other species likely to be considered are basking shark, porbeagle, blue shark, tope, sea bass, sunfish.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

21 April 1926 to 8 September 2022