Celebrating what you helped us achieve in 2019

Aquarius and John Coe, encountered on the very last day of our 2019 expeditions

2019 marked our 25th year of operation. Our 2019 Annual Report is out now and celebrates what you have helped us to achieve.

We didn’t do it alone… our activities were supported by 140 passionate and inspiring volunteers.

It was the most successful year to date for our Whale Track sightings community, with over 1,500 registered users, the platform held nearly 12,000 sightings at 31st Dec 2019.

Record numbers of volunteers took part in research expeditions on board Silurian, helping to launch a new year-round programme of monitoring marine mammals and basking sharks in the Hebrides.

We surveyed nearly 8,000km and recorded over 3,400 whales, dolphins, seals and sharks during more than 1,200 sightings events on board Silurian.

Thousands of people took part in whale watching from land and learnt about the Hebrides’ globally important marine wildlife following the launch of our Hebridean Whale Trail in June 2019.

We’ve reached out to 18,000 people to share our research and create connections between people and Hebridean seas. We’ve run 100 headland watches, visited 20 schools, held 47 community events and public talks, delivered two accredited training courses, hosted the world’s first Whaley Ceilidh and welcomed visitors and local residents alike to our Discovery Centre in Tobermory.

As a founding member of the Scottish Entanglement Alliance we continued our research to understand the impacts and risks of entanglement in creel lines in Scottish waters.

We worked with colleagues at Scottish Environment LINK to campaign for public support for a new Scottish Environment Act and Scottish Government proposals to designate Marine Protected Areas for basking shark, minke whale and Risso’s dolphin, which were first proposed by HWDT back in 2011.

Download the full 2019 Annual Report

We would like to give a warm and heartfelt thank you to the volunteers, donors, members, partners and funders who have supported and contributed to our work in this landmark 25th year, and towards our vision of healthy Hebridean seas for whales, dolphins, porpoises and people.

Join us today and be part of a community of people dedicated to safeguarding the future of the Hebridean marine environment.