Irish basking shark news

This video says about itself:

Jonathan Bird’s Blue World: Basking sharks and Lampreys

May 8, 2012

In 1998, Jonathan made a remarkable discovery about Basking sharks, the second largest fish on Earth. While diving with Basking sharks in the frigid waters of the Bay of Fundy, Jonathan saw parasitic lampreys on the backs of the sharks. This had never before been documented, so he returned the next year with a shark biologist and a lamprey biologist to attempt to recover living lampreys from the backs of Basking sharks. They didn’t think Jonathan could do it. Wait until you see what happens!

From Wildlife Extra:

Early flurry of Basking shark sightings off Ireland

Courtesy of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group

April 2012. A dozen basking sharks were sighted off Slea Head in Ireland’s County Kerry on 11th April by watcher Nick Massett. This isn’t as unusual as it may seem, as almost to the day a year ago Nick also recorded 22 basking sharks off Slea Head.

Clearly the waters off the Dingle peninsula provide important early season feeding for basking sharks. A settled period of a few sunny days of warm weather should see basking shark sighting records from other inshore sites. Over the coming 2-3 months basking sharks should be visible along much of the Irish coastline, although sightings in the Irish Sea, north coast and northeast tend to be much later in the year between August-September.

On 4th April Nick observed a minimum of three sharks from Slea head, with a further two on the 5th and an impressive tally of 6 animals on 6th April.

This is good timing for the IWDG’s first Cape Clear whale (and basking shark) watching weekend on 31st May-2nd June, which will have a certain shark flavour.

Further information on basking sharks in Irish waters can be found on www.baskingshark.ie.

Read more stories about the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group here.

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• Study Says 100 Million Sharks Are Killed Each Year (newsy.com)
• Sharks and filmmakers visit Sue Buel (newsregister.com)
• Sharks Are the New Whales (slate.com)
• Cold ‘keeps basking sharks away’ (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
• Massive Basking Shark Washes Ashore: Scientist to Perform Necropsy (scienceworldreport.com)