Irish Marine Life
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The Best and Worst of Marine Life
Image credit: The Mayo News 2010
We paint quite the blissful picture of marine life here; considerate crustaceans pausing for examination by curious biologists, obliging fish waiting patiently for a snorkeller to enter the shallows and so on.
For some, however, the abiding marine life moment of Summer 2010 will be a sore memory, as they never imagined a trip to the beach on a glorious day could conclude so very ingloriously – sitting by the lifeguard’s hut with a swollen red foot in a bucket of boiling water.
That’s the proverbial insult to the injury of a weever fish sting, the incidence of which rises in August each year, not because there are more of them, rather because there are more of us.
The weever fish (Echiichthys vipera) spends most of its time buried in the sand around the low tide mark, and unfortunately for us, with its poisonous dorsal fin pointing straight up waiting for a shrimp or small fish – or an unintended surfer, body-boarder or swimmer.
Weever fish stings are more likely at spring tides, when lower water allows us to be further down the beach in weever territory.
The venom has only taken one person so far, and that was a long time ago in England. It’s still quite painful though and requires immediate immersion in water as hot as can be tolerated to breakdown the proteins in the venom, and kill the pain.
Things can go the other way at the beach of course and when it’s good, wildlife-wise, it can be very good. Like last night, we were out surfing when we got a lot more than the good waves that had been promised. A half hour before sunset, a pod of bottlenose dolphins stole quietly from the deep into the waters around us, gently breaking the surface to announce their presence and eventually, after 20 minutes or so, joining in with the wave-riding. This they do rather well, as they effortlessly match the waves’ speed with their powerful tail propulsion and authority of movement.
Why they do this is another question. They are animals with deeply complex social and intelligent workings which need stimulation (the humans who indulge in this activity might argue the same), so a likely answer would be found somewhere there.
They come inshore year-round but late August and early September always seem to be a good time to share a wave with them at a Mayo beach.
The Irish Times – Seaweed
Image © Viney, reproduced from Irishtimes.com
Here’s a timely and quality article by Michael Viney on the state of seaweed in Ireland, including the good and the bad, from The Irish Times yesterday.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0821/1224277276531.html
Fairies ag damhsa on the shore
Image © JP Tiernan 2010
Séamus Mac an Iomaire, in his benchmark book on shore life, called them an tonachán, but a man in Connemara advised me yesterday of a different name: an míol críonna. Requiring a slight pause to achieve the correct pronunciation, ‘míol críonna’ sounded nicer we thought, but it is less than accurate, as it really refers to a wood-louse.
His friend offered a different version again, but none of us liked that name; and I’ve already forgotten it, although I suspect it was dreancaid mhara (sea flea). One of the younger members of the party knew them as ‘the sandhopper’, which everyone agreed upon.
I told her to throw the piece of fheamainn (which I had given to her to hold while I explained to the rest how the tonachán lives underneath it) into the fire when she goes home – to listen to them explode. Her mother looked startled; I clarified that I was referring to the air bladders exploding, not the tonacháns.
Noting the air bladders, the man corrected my description of the piece of seaweed she was holding as fheamainn bhoilgíneach. Fheamainn, of course meaning seaweed and bhoilig meaning stomach. Which is what someone a long time ago thought the little air bladders which occur on Fucus vesiculosis, or bladder wrack, looked like; little swollen stomachs.
But back to the tonachán, or míol críonna, or sandhopper. Most people’s first encounter with these cryptic crustaceans is a less scientific and more enchanting experience; an unforeseen after-party maybe, late on a summer’s night. Like this time last year, when we chanced on thousands of them, pulsing and bounding – ag damhsa – to an unheard beat, on a shore which was turning lighter shades of grey as the rising sun threatened to reveal us before we reached home.
The sandhopper resembles a tiny prawn or shrimp, which remains burrowed in the sand or under wrack all day. At night, this leaping activity is simply an excited feeding state, although scientists aren’t sure why exactly it behaves like this. It leaps or hops up to a foot or two off the ground by sudden outward flicks of the lower half of its abdomen, with no control over the direction it lands in.
All this of course we knew, so we didn’t rise the next morning wondering whether we should risk being scorned for our state of sobriety by sharing tales of fairies dancing on the beach the night before … but how many have?
This article appeared in The Mayo News 17/08/2010
Phytoplankton Bloom, West Cork
We have been reading and re-reading this contribution, which we love, from Anthony Beese in Cork:
The fish seller in the English Market tells me about his amazing encounter with green lights on the strand at Inchydoney in West Cork. He was walking along the shore at 2 am on the morning of July 25th.
I am imprisoned by fairies for three nights and by sloth for three more, but on August 1st, Breda and I visit the strand at The Dock at Castlepark, Kinsale (formerly Jarley’s Cove) – a rocky cove filled with stoneless sand and a steep foreshore – artificially formed no doubt. Even in that sheltered place there are signs of the recent bloom. At the southern end of the strand, near rocks, the bioluminescence shows best, clinging it seems to small fragments of seaweed:
MOONFIRE (WATER FAIRIES)
We see
Lying under the last quarter of the moon,
Flickering lights at the edge of the slipping tide,
White sparks that run through a rocky gut,
And hints of blue and green
Suddenly lost in calms.
Dive in!
Irishmarinelife welcomes observations, questions and contributions of any kind….irishmarinelife@gmail.com
Sea Spuds
Image © JP Tiernan 2010
‘’I found something on the beach the other day, maybe you’d know what it is? ´´ is something I hear a lot, especially in these, the longer days of the year. This week’s query grabbed me more than most would however, primarily as it was presented more elegantly than most would bother. In a box which once held an expensive wine glass and wrapped so carefully in the soft foam which once cosseted that same delicate crystal were seven gleaming nuggets, brilliantly white and alluringly fragile.
´´Urchin shells’’ I said, but puzzled at how white they had been bleached. Could they really have caught that much sun, and all the while lying intact on a windy West Mayo shore? ‘’Domestos’’ she confessed, explaining that she thought they would improve a shelf or windowsill somewhere in her new house. They probably will, especially as they are not found so much around here, certainly less than the whelks, limpets and clamshells which line mantle pieces and bring beach thoughts to living rooms around Ireland.
About the size and shape of a small spud, the Sea Potato (as it is called in the West of Ireland) or Heart Urchin (as it is called by the rest of the world) is an echinoderm, that group of species which, in basic terms, are all quite round such as starfish, sea cucumbers and sand dollars. The animal lives inside the exceptionally thin shell which contains an elaborate configuration of tiny holes, allowing soft spines to stick out and defend against predators. Other urchins, like the once abundant but now overfished purple urchin, live on rocks and graze algae but the sea potato spends its life covered in soft sand, feeding on detritus.
How did this sand dwelling subtidal species come then, in numbers, to meet such an elegant end as a polished ornament at the hands of a beach walker? The sea potato breeds in summer and it is at this time that large numbers of juveniles are found on the sediment surface. An out of season large swell, which we received last week, would be their certain shoreward transporter. Or, more likely, they could have recently taken up an unwelcome residence in a lobster pot, as they are reputed to do, and found themselves subsequently evicted by a fisherman whose windowsill and mantelpiece collections are already quite complete.
This article appeared in The Mayo News 3/8/2010
Galway Beach Talks – August 2010
Galway County Council are running a series of beach talks at their blue flag beaches for the month of August 2010. The talks are entirely free and given by locally based expert marine biologists.
The talks are interactive and fun and are an excellent way for kids and adults to learn more about the ecology of the beaches and the various habitats found there, with everything from shellfish to seaweeds and sanddunes and lots more being explored.
Click on the poster below to view a larger version with dates and times of talks.
Contact Sheila Murphy at 091 509174 or smurphy@galwaycoco.ie
Snorkelling Season in Mayo!
Image © J.P Tiernan 2010
Our foreign service continues this week, in the form of shallow water surveys, employing those most rudimentary tools of the marine scientist: snorkel, mask, fins and a good attitude. Which is what we would be most likely doing were we in Mayo this week, given that we are into the last weeks of July and early weeks of August. Settled seas, good visibility, warm(er) waters and friends on holidays mean these weeks of the year are prime snorkelling season.
Better wetsuit technology in recent years means now more affordable and reliable warmth in our temperate waters, which will top off at – a still quite cool – 16° Celsius or so, sometime in September. These key pieces of equipment, which were once heavy, expensive and came in limited sizes, are now light, reasonably priced and widely available for everyone from toddlers to xxl folk.
More and more people, thus, are taking their first look below and seeing for themselves the occasional wildlife treasures that they didn’t know could be found in Mayo, such as the cuckoo wrasse (pictured). Family visits to Mayo’s 11 blue flag beaches now often deviate to the fringes of the strand where rock-pools and shallow water rocky habitats draw kids and adults hopeful for a glimpse of an iascán, darting nervously in between rocks, or more ambitiously in deeper locations perhaps, a pollack, or a dogfish snoozing on the bottom.
Shores which are too sheltered such as around Carraholly, Newport and Bunnacurry, Achill aren’t much good for snorkelling as their waters are often sedimented giving poor visibility and subject to strong tidal flows. More exposed locations such as Old Head, Keem, Inisturk and Clare Island are perfect, providing there is not much swell present. On extremely calm days, a lone rock in shallow water at beaches such as Carramore, Doughmakone, Mulranny, Keel and Elly Bay is a perfect introduction to Mayo marine life. Rock pools left by the tide are perfect for the youngest of snorkellers.
Important to remember is that snorkelling zones are usually well outside the limits of lifeguard protection; snorkellers with 20 years of experience always tell someone on shore before they go and never go alone; nobody should. For those looking at rockpool life, a tide table is necessary as is careful consideration of the following phrase, which those living by any West of Ireland shore will have heard countless times – ‘tide waits for no man’.
This article appeared in The Mayo News 20/07/2010
Vegetarian Ninjas and Irish Leatherbacks
Image credit: L. Duignan 2010
Like some of our larger and finer marine species at home, the Pacific green turtle is vegetarian, or more accurately, turns so upon reaching its teenage years. It also becomes increasingly more relaxed, almost indifferent, at this later stage of its life. Whether the two are related is doubtful, but in any case it an easy animal to spend time with, facing adversities such as camera brandishing marine biologists with an almost lethargic nonchalance.
Here, the might of the Ecuadorian National Park authorities is proving greater than any Pacific swell in keeping our ship in port. We should be at sea now, carrying out surveys of threatened marine algae species, but permits and an endless tide of bureaucracy which serves no-one, least of all conservation science, means we wait.
It’s not a bad place to wait however, and daily trips underwater to brush up on our identification skills of the local species and carry out pilot surveys keep us occupied and photo-full. It’s not too far from our project brief either, to spend time taking shots of and writing about these attractive reptiles. They gather in inshore bays in these islands to reproduce and be one of the more appealing grazers of the threatened algae that we study. Everyone likes turtles, so grant applications and funding requests for studies of ‘boring’ species such as seaweeds invariably feature any link that can be made to an animal that once only appeared on our screens and in our mindsets after the adjectives ‘teenage mutant ninja’.
As might be guessed from its name, we won’t be seeing the Pacific green ninja turtle vegging out a Mayo bay anytime soon. On the other hand, a turtle which is facing extinction over here in the Pacific has been increasingly shown to be more than just a casual visitor to Irish waters. Leatherback turtles were always thought of as wayward drifters to Irish, and very frequently Mayo, inshore territory. It has become increasingly realised however that the number of turtles and frequency of sightings means we should start thinking of them more as one of our own species; a semi-resident migrant to Ireland rather than a lost traveller.
The same logic doesn’t apply to humans however and strict immigration laws mean we have to be out of here in a matter of weeks. Leatherbacks aren’t as easily encountered in Ireland, usually just sporadically seen by fishermen far from land. But it would make an interesting challenge for the rest of summer 2010; swim with a turtle in our own back yard.
This article was published in the July 6th edition of The Mayo News
Tuna´s end
An excellent article in The New York Times about Bluefin tuna and global fishing considerations:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27Tuna-t.html?pagewanted=1
And 6,000 miles away from Ireland…
Image © L Duignan 2010
6,000 miles from the shores of West Mayo in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, a large lizard like creature, quite unlike anything else on this planet, crawls lazily over ancient lava rock at sunrise to feed on clumps of seaweed, entirely undisturbed by our presence just a few meters away. It’s a marine iguana, and like so many of the other animals and plants found in this group of volcanic islands, it’s endemic; meaning it occurs here and only here.
Below the surface a half hour later, an underwater data survey is interrupted by another endemic species; an endlessly curious sea-lion that demands our attention as it swims alongside and pulls playfully at our snorkelling fins. Similar in appearance to the harbour seals of Clew Bay, it is entirely unrelated to them and stresses this difference through its engaging and matchless behaviour. If not a sea-lion, then maybe a parrot fish will come and gaze dopily at the human visitors to its rocky reef domain, or a white tip shark will pass by, uninterested and oddly unthreatening. Such are the peculiarities of working in these islands, so often referred to by disbelieving authors as ‘The Enchanted Isles’.
Image © J Tiernan 2010
It’s the same seaweed that the iguana forages for at low tide that brings us, two marine researchers from the West of Ireland, to this remarkable place where we will divert our efforts away from Ireland’s marine life for a month or so. We are tasked with answering questions about the conservation status of the seaweed here and helping the local National Park authorities formulate strategies to ensure its’ and the unique and extraordinary animals that depend on its’ survival.
Despite being a marine reserve and a UNESCO world heritage site, seaweeds have been doing the unthinkable here; going extinct. Vast tracts of the underwater seascape are bare of seaweed and heavy with grazing sea urchins. This has serious implications for the habitats and species they support, including the marine iguana, which doesn’t eat anything else in fact. The oceanographic phenomenon of El Niño which causes unusually warm water here every few years is the main cause, but there may be more insidious reasons to consider: Twenty years ago, the locals tell me, you could stick your hand blindly into the water at night and pull out a lobster, such were their numbers. Too many did this and less lobsters equals more urchins (lobsters eat urchins) which equals less seaweed.
Urchin Barren Zone. Image © J Tiernan 2010
We are a long way from anything like this in Ireland, or are we? Our ecosystem is more resilient but it’s not invincible. Last week was European Fish Week where the major theme was overfishing and what we are going to do about it. In the next few weeks we will complete a week long voyage here documenting where, how many and which types of seaweed are still occurring. In the meantime we will observe this peculiar and mystifying ecosystem and think from afar about what we can learn about our own.
irishmarinelife
lenny antonelli
