Interactions with Basking Sharks

Our last evening lecturer before Christmas was Shane Wasik, of Basking Shark Scotland, a company who operate boats out of Oban during the summer season.

Shane spoke on ‘Interactions with Basking Sharks’ and told us that apart from giving visitors the opportunity of swimming with basking sharks, the second biggest fish in the world, BSS also photographed these gentle plankton-eating giants and collected data on their movements – there are many aspects of their lives still unrecorded.  He spoke about the group’s photographing for the first time smaller fish accompanying them, much as pilot fish do with other sharks. These proved to be a fish native to the Canary Islands. The photography was excellent, in particular the high quality video taken from above by photographic drone, and listeners learnt a great deal about this elusive creature. His photographs included other species such as the sunfish, the heaviest bony fish in the world, which is occasionally seen in Scottish waters, maybe riding in on ‘offshoots’ of the North Atlantic Drift. A thoroughly enjoyable and informative talk.

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Created: 21 December 2014

Beaver report published

The final report of the beaver reintroduction trial in Knapdale, Argyll has recently been published by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. You can find the report here, but be warned, it's a 16MB download. There's also an associated item on the SWT website here.

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Created: 26 December 2014