Events

Sea Watch Foundation runs two large citizen science events every year and we’d love it if our Adopters joined us! As you know, our main base is in Cardigan Bay, West Wales, and many of our Adopters come to visit us in the summer with their boat vouchers. However, we understand that New Quay is a long way for many people to travel to but the good news is you can join us for our National Whale and Dolphin Watch week event from any coastline in the UK!

Our Orca Watch event runs for just over one week and is based up in John O’Groats, Scotland. This national recording event has run successfully for thirteen years. The idea for the event originated from the possibility of underwater turbines being installed in the Pentland Firth. This possibility initiated the first seasonal watch to gather information on how killer whales use this area and what might be the consequences of such an installation. Since then, the event has increased public awareness of how and when orcas utilise waters of the Pentland Firth during the summer months. Orca Watch also highlights the need for conservation, protection and continued research into the status, distribution, and abundance of this iconic whale species around the UK. Killer whales (orcas) are rare in the British Isles but can be observed mainly in northern Britain, around the Hebrides and the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland). Those from the Northern Isles seem to come from a population that ranges between Norway, Iceland and the Faroes, visiting the northernmost North Sea in the winter to feed upon herring or mackerel, and then coming closer to shore between May and August, where they have been observed chasing seals.
Find out more about Orca Watch https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/orca-watch-3/

National Whale & Dolphin Watch is our second annual event that has been running for twenty-five years now! Its aim is to collect as much data as possible in the UK and Ireland to help up a picture of the health of our cetaceans and the environment in which they live.

Threats to whales and dolphins have never been so great, and yet for several species we lack anything but a rudimentary knowledge of their status and distribution. The more coastal species like harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin are specially exposed to the detrimental effects of human activities, and both have undergone significant declines in the past decades. Research has shown that there is little awareness in the UK of the tremendous diversity of whales, dolphins and porpoises found around our shores. The use of non-scientific members of the general public and non-specialist volunteers to collect data on cetaceans to investigate their status, distribution, abundance and well-being has been pioneered in the UK by the Director of Sea Watch Foundation.

Our NWDW event is open to everyone. You can join an organised event in your area or create your own! You can be one of a large group, or simply wander along to your nearest coastal spot and sit for anything from one hour to much longer, keeping an eye on the water and writing down what you see. Binoculars are important, a pen and paper to write down your sightings and related sea conditions, boat/bird activity etc or why not download our Sea Watcher App which will take care of all of that for you! It’s free to download and use and the really cool thing is anything survey you submit via the app will be viewable afterwards in our cutting-edge map viewer on our website!

Find out more about NWDW https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/national-whale-and-dolphin-watch-faqs/#hfaq-post-25518

Download Sea Watcher App – https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/sea-watcher-app/