Passive Acoustic Monitoring for improved conservation of Harbour porpoise in Irish SACs

​🗣️ Update: We've had an overwhelmingly positive response to this workshop already, thank you all for your interest!! To help ensure effective and engaging breakout discussions, we will be capping registration for this event.
If the session fills up, you're welcome to join the waitlist via the same registration link, and we’ll do our best to accommodate where possible.

​You are invited to attend a short online workshop I’m organising as part of my Research Ireland postdoctoral fellowship, “Porpoises, PAM, and Perspectives for Conservation and Management.”

​The workshop will present key findings from visual and acoustic monitoring in Roaringwater Bay SAC and open a focused discussion on how integrated monitoring approaches can support SAC management for harbour porpoise, particularly in light of the expansion from 3 to 16 SACs in Irish waters including harbour porpoise as a Qualifying Interest.

​The session will include:

• ​A contribution from National Parks and Wildlife Service on the SAC network and monitoring needs.

• ​A brief presentation of findings from Roaringwater Bay SAC, including:

  • ​Trends in harbour porpoise density and abundance estimates

  • ​Habitat use patterns from visual and acoustic monitoring

  • ​Power analysis to assess the effectiveness of acoustic monitoring programme.

• ​Breakout discussions on practical strategies for improving site-based monitoring.

• ​(TBC) Short international perspectives (2–3 mins) on how harbour porpoise or other small cetaceans are monitored in different national contexts.

​If you’d be open to contributing a short perspective, I’d love to chat further, but you’re very welcome to attend and take part in the discussions without presenting. All input will be valuable and used to inform future monitoring strategies for harbour porpoise in Irish SACs.