‘Ireland’s Ocean’ series captures stunning sights off Cork and Kerry coasts

Áilín Quinlan talks to filmmaker Ken O’Sullivan about a new four-part series, Ireland’s Ocean, which starts Sunday, June 22 at 6.30pm on RTÉ One.

WE’RE in for a treat — these dreamlike underwater shots of wildlife photographer George Karbus swimming with dolphins off the Cork coast and never-before-seen footage of thousands of jellyfish mating in the sea off Kerry are only a sample of the marine delights that await us in a new TV series which kicks off tomorrow.

The fascinating four-part ocean wildlife series explores the spell-binding diversity of the marine life living around the Irish coast and asks some thought-provoking questions about the wildlife that share our waters:

Why are worrying numbers of dolphins washing up dead on our Atlantic coast? Are sharks really the hateful, terrifying predators who lurk beneath the sea surface waiting to devour us? And what are the strange little creatures which come out at night to dance and mate on the Atlantic sea-floor?

The answers lie in the journey by independent film-maker Ken O’Sullivan into the colourful marine world around Ireland’s coast with its abundance of exotic creatures, many of them documented for the first time in the area.

O’Sullivan, who specialises in filming ocean wildlife both under and over water all over the world, says some of his best experiences have been in Irish waters. He spent much of his time for the Ireland’s Ocean series either in or on the seas around Ireland gathering the sumptuous footage which constitute the programmes.

“Filming underwater requires a lot of effort, but in our temperate seas, as opposed to the tropics that you mostly see in wildlife documentaries, it’s even more difficult. Our seas are rarely calm and obviously colder than the tropics,” he explains.

“It’s a passion really, and you have to be constantly ready to film. When good sea conditions come, you have to be in the water filming and building up your archive of wildlife material.

“We spend a lot of time at sea all year around, usually in our inflatable RIB. I’ve spent the last five or six winters filming dolphins and whales in Ireland. Last November on a single day, we had five humpback whales, about a thousand common dolphins, thousands of diving birds, several minke and fin whales (the second largest creature ever to have lived), and all less than two miles from the shore off Baltimore in West Cork.”

Much of the filming for the first programme in the series — ‘Dolphins’ — took place off the coast of Cork. This programme looks at the alarming increase in the number of dead dolphins washing up on our coasts. “Numbers have been increasing by up to 200% year on year over the last four or five years,” says O’ Sullivan.

In January and early February of 2013 about 27 common dolphins washed up on the Mayo coast. The animals were in excellent condition, and experts were brought in from abroad to determine how they died.

The programme looks at why these and other dolphins are dying, and puts forward a number of reasons for the worrying trend.

It follows scientists Dr Joanne O’Brien and Dr Simon Berrow as they investigate the welfare of dolphins in Irish waters — there are some 27,000 common dolphins living in Irish waters — and we host half the European population of bottlenose dolphins; yet we still have limited knowledge of issues such as their diet and breeding habits.

This episode also debates the phenomenon of solitary dolphins like Dusty who lives off the coast of Clare — nobody knows why, though it’s speculated that after becoming separated from her social group she became habituated to human company.

However, whether this is a good thing or not is up for debate — in the summer of 2013, Dusty made global headlines when she attacked several swimmers, causing serious injury. “People like to swim with dolphins but they are wild animals,” O’Sullivan points out.

The programme examines the Dusty phenomenon, both from the perspective of the people who swim with her and the scientist who discuss what the impact of this interaction with humans could be — there is disconcerting footage of people jumping on her or trying to grab hold of her dorsal fin.

Episode Two, ‘Shark Killers’, looks at the sharks and other species in which our seas abound — with almost 40 species of sharks and 30 species of rays, the seas around Ireland are rich in marine life of this kind.

Porbeagle sharks are close relatives of the great white and until recently thrived in Irish coastal waters, while blue sharks still appear in large numbers during the summer months. In this programme, Clare resident and current British Wildlife Photographer of the Year, George Karbus goes underwater to come face-to-face with sharks to examine whether they truly are mankillers.

The programme follows the conservation efforts of Dr Edward Farrell in placing satellite tags on porbeagle sharks off Donegal and examines the global decimation of the species — scientists estimate that 100 million sharks are being killed annually, mostly to use their fins in an expensive soup popular in Asia.

Tralee Bay, a unique marine habitat in Europe and a summer breeding grounds for some shark and ray species, is featured — several of these species here are no longer found anywhere else in Europe because of over-fishing.

The third programme offers viewers a rare opportunity to watch thousands of jellyfish breed in the shallow waters off the Kerry coast — in a scene never before filmed in Irish waters, according to O’Sullivan.

The shallow seas around this country, he explains, are among the most fertile on Earth. Nutrients churned up from the sea floor mix with sunlight to create a fertile and abundant ecosystem — we have an abundance of life from microscopic plankton to the myriad of small colourful creatures which inhabit our waters.

The programme also investigates the potential impact of nitrate runoff from land to sea and shows how invasive seaweeds like Sargassum — a type of seaweed which comes from Japan and may originally have travelled to European waters in the ballast of big container ships — can pose a threat to local marine life because it grows so rapidly.

The last in the series, ‘Ocean Habitats’, features fish and crustaceans and the diverse ways in which they have adapted to living in different marine habitats around Ireland.

Sand is our most common sea floor habitat and creatures have adapted wonderfully to use it for both camouflage and shelter.

The programme features flatfish and crabs, whose skin colour exactly matches the sandy bottoms — and their predators, the stingrays which hunt over the sands.

And last but not least is the fabulous marine night-life — while many animals sleep during the night, in the sea a new wave of creatures come to life.

Little Cuttles are an amazing creature capable of changing their body colour several times a second, we meet them hunting, dancing and mating at night on the sea floor off our Atlantic coast

“We spent a lot of time diving at night to see the different creatures which emerge in the dark hours,” says O’Sullivan, whose footage gives viewers a real insight to the lively night-life beneath the ocean waves.

“I don’t mind the cold water — equipment is good nowadays — but once you experience the underwater world, there’s no going back.

“When conditions are good, the diving in Ireland is as good as any place else in the world.”

It can certainly be a tough way to make a living, he observes, “but it’s wonderful to be able to document days like that and bring it to the living rooms of Ireland.”

Ireland’s Ocean, RTÉ One, Sunday, June 22, 6.30pm