Harbor seals in Republic of Ireland in Aug 2003

National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dept. of Environment, Heritage and Local Government

Michelle Cronin, Coastal & Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork

The status of Ireland's harbor seal Phoca vitulina vitulina population is poorly understood. The most recent national population estimate dates back to the breeding season in 1978 and did not cover the entire coastline. Reliable up-to-date information on the abundance and distribution of harbor seals in Ireland is necessary to assess the conservation status of the species and for the effective identification, management and monitoring of special areas of conservation required for harbor seals under the European Union Habitats Directive. To provide comprehensive current information on Ireland's harbor seal population, a geographically extensive survey was conducted along the coastline of the Republic of Ireland during the species' annual moult in August 2003. This complemented a similar survey of Northern Ireland, which was conducted in 2002. Using thermal imaging technology, haul-out groups of harbor seals and grey seals Halichoerus grypus were identified from the air, aerial-counts were obtained and compared with simultaneous ground-count data from selected sites. Harbor seal distribution recorded during the 2003 moult season was concentrated in the south-west, west and north-west of the country. This national survey yielded a minimum population estimate for the Republic of Ireland of 2905 harbor seals, delivering an effective baseline for current and future population research.

N/A

This dataset also includes ancillary grey seal data, showing summer terrestrial distribution of grey seals. This data cannot be used for estimating population size of grey seals as this is conducted during the winter breeding season.

Overview

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
datetime	Date and time of observation
sight_no
country
region
subregion
species	Species observed
sp_tsn	Species ITIS TSN
sp_count	Number of animals observed
sp_count_s
easts
norths
location
vcr
comments
longitude	Longitude of observation
latitude	Latitude of observation
oid	Unique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)