THE annual whale and dolphin watch held by a New Quay marine conservation group will begin on Saturday.

The National Whale and Dolphin Watch will take place between Saturday, 23 July and Sunday,31 July and will see 200 land watches taking place across the UK coastline. This will be the 21st annual watch hosted by New Quay-based Sea Watch Foundation.

The nine-day citizen science event involves encouraging members of the public to conduct watches for whales, dolphins and porpoises across the country and to join in with raising awareness on how we can protect these species.

Ceri Beynon-Davies, Senior Marine Advisor at Natural Resources Wales said: “We’re really pleased to support the Sea Watch Foundation’s National Whale and Dolphin Watch. It’s such an important event that will develop what we know about the distribution of whales, dolphins and porpoises around Wales and the UK.

“We would like to encourage everyone who is interested to get involved.

“Citizen scientists play a crucial role in gathering the research, and getting out as a community for a watch and to record the data is so beneficial for our mental and physical health too.

“This event is a great opportunity for everyone to get involved with understanding and protecting these magnificent creatures – we really can’t do it without you!”

Organised land watches are taking place across the country.

All the details of landwatches and how you can get involved can be found at https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/events/.

This year an “Observer’s Prize Draw” will be held where, by submitting a sighting between Saturday 23 July and Sunday 31 July, you are automatically entered for a chance to win our amazing prize hamper.

Whale and dolphin watch
A number of events will be held in New Quay from Saturday (Sea watch foundation)

A photography competition, children’s drawing/photography competition and a raffle will be held in New Quay during the week.

Raffle tickets can be bought from our Dolphin Hub in New Quay with the winner announced on Saturday 30 July during our live music night at New Quay Sports and Social Bar.

A spokesperson for the Sea Watch Foundation added: “We’ll be running daily events in New Quay including a BBQ, pub quiz, land watches, workshops, bake sale, live music night and an evening sunset cruise with dolphin spotting boat trips.

“This year we are delighted to be hosting online events too including land watch training webinars, an online art workshop with Mapping Ocean Change (MOCA) and our annual evening with Sea Watch Foundation.

“Details of these events will be available on our website over the next week.”

The Sea Watch Foundation has monitored whales, dolphins and porpoises in British waters for over 40 years with the help of volunteer observers acting as citizen scientists all around the country.

The aim of National Whale and Dolphin Watch is to obtain a snapshot picture of the status and distribution of some of the species of cetacean recorded in UK waters through systematic watches from both land and sea, as well as casual watches, whilst also raising public awareness of the wealth of marine mammals we have around our coasts.

Sightings can be submitted to: https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/sightingsform/ or via the free SeaWatcher app available on Android and iOS devices.