The area we concentrate on is the southern end of the block they refer to as E and the Northern end of the block they refer to as D. We have been surveying these from both the Stena Europe and Small Boats throughout the seasons since 20004.
The SCANS III surveys were conducted from aircraft and clearly not fit for purpose. Firstly only one sighting of Bottlenose Dolphin was made for the whole of Cardigan Bay whilst we were photographing them in Fishguard Bay on a daily basis!
Many more circa 400+ would have been present north of us around the Teifi and on to Newquay and beyond to Anglesey. No Common Dolphins were seen in our sector of Block E where we regularly encounter pods of up to 100 in a single sighting occasionally over 1,000!
As for Risso's, a couple of sightings up north but nothing around the "Tusker Risso's Triangle" a prolific area for them.
Bucking the trend are Minke Whales, which appear to be (excluding Harbour Porpoises) The commonest cetacean in the Irish Sea.
Yep its a joke as the hundreds of Sea Trust Volunteers who have worked hard to collect reliable data all know! But worse than that, this misleading, unreliable data will be used in any future management plans for cetacean protection and conservation.