The Explorers Wild About Wildlife on the Seashore Species Illustrations for Visual Arts include over twenty seashore animal illustrations that can be used for visual arts and other cross curricular lesson plans. The visual arts sheets maybe used for projects and visual art classes including colouring, painting or use of textiles to demonstrate the children’s discovery and understanding of the seashore. The sheets are divided into species and include Shellfish, Crustaceans, Fish, Jellies & Corals, Stars & Urchins and lots more, and provide a caption box for children to write fun facts and details of their work. Click 'View more files' below the thumbnail images for more worksheets.

Ireland’s marine territory extends far beyond our coastline up to 220 million acres (approx. 880,000km2), an area more than 10 times our land mass. The 'Real Map of Ireland' was developed using seabed information gathered as part of a major programme to map Ireland’s entire seabed territory. The programme began in 1999 as the Irish National Seabed Survey and continues today as INFOMAR*, a joint venture by the Geological Survey of Ireland and the Marine Institute. It’s one of the largest seabed mapping programmes in the world. The Real Map of Ireland shows Ireland's current designated Irish Continental Shelf, which is one of the largest seabed territories in Europe. The continental shelf is the extension of a State's territorial waters, where the natural land extends under the sea to the outer edge of the continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles from the coastline baseline. We have sovereign rights over the continental shelf to explore and develop its natural resources, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Part VI.

The Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) and Marine Institute (MI) conducted seabed mapping between 2003 and 2005 under the auspices of the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS) and from 2006 to present day under the INtegrated mapping FOr the sustainable development of Irelands MArine Resource (INFOMAR) programme. INFOMAR is a joint venture between the GSI and the MI. The programme succeeded the INSS which was one of the largest marine mapping programmes ever undertaken, with a focus on deep water mapping. INFOMAR is funded by the Irish Government through the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). INFOMAR Phase 1, 2006 to 2015 focused on mapping 26 priority bays and 3 priority areas around Ireland and creating a range of integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological features of the seabed in those areas.

The Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) and Marine Institute (MI) conducted seabed mapping between 2003 and 2005 under the auspices of the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS) and from 2006 to present day under the INtegrated mapping FOr the sustainable development of Irelands MArine Resource (INFOMAR) programme. INFOMAR is a joint venture between the GSI and the MI. The programme succeeded the INSS which was one of the largest marine mapping programmes ever undertaken, with a focus on deep water mapping. INFOMAR is funded by the Irish Government through the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE). INFOMAR Phase 1, 2006 to 2015 focused on mapping 26 priority bays and 3 priority areas around Ireland and creating a range of integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological features of the seabed in those areas. INFOMAR Phase 2, 2016 to 2026 intends to map the remainder of Ireland’s entire seabed. Figure 1 shows the extent of the mapped area under INSS and INFOMAR and the outstanding areas as of January 2019. Grey have already been mapped, blue and coloured hatched areas are unmapped.

In these changing times, with political and environmental uncertainty surrounding us, fisheries management needs to become more adaptive in order to respond to the changes in our natural environment and changing management frameworks. Based on close to real-time information updates, and harnessing modern technology, Real-Time Incentive (RTI) fisheries management is designed to evolve with the fish stocks, enabling managers to respond more quickly and efficiently to management issues as they arise. Through the use of a credit system that makes use of regularly updated fine-scale information, incentives can be incorporated as rewards to encourage desirable actions such as data collection or ‘fishing-for-litter’ activities. However, in order for a new system such as this to be useful and become accepted, stakeholders must be involved in the development and design process. This paper details the consultative process carried out with Irish demersal fishery stakeholders in an effort to identify their likes and dislikes of the system, and work towards tailoring the RTI system into a practical solution that works for them. In this process, we achieved a detailed understanding of the fishery, the complexity of the system, and the challenges faced by the stakeholders, all of which must be considered when attempting to implement a new management system such as RTI. A range of proposals were made by stakeholders, including new ideas for the future development of the RTI system. Most striking were the numerous ideas and approaches to tackling key issues currently facing the industry, many of which also have relevance to existing fisheries management. Given the freedom and support to do so, fishing industry stakeholders are eager to contribute to solving many of their own problems.

The primary aim of this project was to develop and implement a strategy which would integrate and enable data interrogation across all data sources used by the Marine Institute's Fisheries Ecosystem Advisory Services (FEAS) group.

The interest in the biotoxin and micro shellfish safety monitoring programme and research activities from members of the industry and other agencies is vital to ensure that the scientists and regulators are mutually aware of relevant current and emerging issues .

On behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM), the Marine Institute carries out monitoring of chemical residues in finfish for aquaculture sector. This monitoring is set out in the annual National Residue Control Plan, which is approved by the European Commission, and is an important component of the DAFM food safety controls and is implemented under a service contract with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Since 1999, the Marine Institute has implemented the National Residues Monitoring Programme for aquaculture. This is carried out on behalf of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, which is the responsible organisation for residue controls on farmed finfish. In 2019, in excess of 912 tests and a total of 2,601 measurements were carried out on 176 samples of farmed finfish for a range of residues. Implementation of the Aquaculture 2019 Plan involves taking samples at both farm and processing plant: *118 target samples taken at harvest: 105 farmed salmon and 13 freshwater trout. * 58 target samples were taken at other stages of production: 50 salmon smolts and 8 freshwater trout. All 2019 samples were compliant. For target sampling of farmed fish, a summary table of the residue results from 2005 - 2019 is outlined in Table 1. Overall, the outcome for aquaculture remains one of consistently low occurrence of residues in farmed finfish, with no non-compliant target residues results for the period 2006-2014, 0.11% and 0.10% non-compliant target residues results in 2015 and 2016 respectively and no non-compliant target results for the period 2017 to 2019.

The WESPAS survey program is the consolidation of two existing survey programs carried out by FEAS, the Malin Shelf herring acoustic survey, and the boarfish acoustic survey. The Malin Shelf herring acoustic survey has been carried out annually since 2008 and reports on the annual abundance of summer feeding aggregations of herring to the west of Scotland and the north and west of Ireland from 54°N to 58°30’N. The boarfish survey was conducted from 2011 using a chartered fishing vessel and reported the abundance of spawning aggregations of boarfish from 47°N to 57°N. In 2016 both surveys were combined into the WESPAS survey and have been carried out onboard the RV Celtic Explorer over a 42-day period, providing synoptic coverage of shelf waters from 47°30’N northwards to 58°30’N. Age stratified relative stock abundance estimates of boarfish, herring and horse mackerel within the survey area were calculated using acoustic data and biological data from trawl sampling. Stock estimates of boarfish and horse mackerel were submitted to the ICES assessment Working Group for Widely Distributed Stocks (WGWIDE) meeting in August 2020. Herring estimates are submitted to the Herring Assessment Working Group (HAWG) meeting in March every year. Survey performance will be reviewed at the ICES Planning Group meeting for International Pelagic Surveys (WGIPS) meeting in January 2021.