Sea Watch Foundation (SWF) is a UK-based research charity established for over thirty years to improve the conservation and protection of marine mammals in British and Irish waters. Besides dedicated research projects much of its work involves monitoring numbers and locations of cetaceans, and recently, seals and other marine megafauna including sea turtles, sharks and sunfish. It holds a sightings database of 335,000 records dating from 1960 to the present, regarded as the largest and longest running database of its kind in Europe. About six thousand observers have contributed to these datasets.
To raise awareness of marine mammals, SWF actively involves the public in scientific monitoring. With in-person courses and internet-based training, sightings and survey effort are collected though their website, forms and social media and, more recently, a mobile phone app (Seawatcher App). Although the focus has been the seas around the British Isles, with the development of the App, this has extended coverage across a much wider part of Europe.
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Metadata last updated on 2025-02-01 22:00:28.0
