The ‘Touch Tanks at Lough Hyne’ is an annual event organised by Dr. Rob McAllen (School of BEES) and Terri Kearney (Skibbereen Heritage Centre) as part of National Heritage Week.
Every year the event draws a significant crowd hoping to interact with some of the marine animals from the Lough, and to learn more about their natural habitat and life cycles. Some of the Deep Maps team were in attendance on 27th of August to join Breda on her outreach work at the lough. It was one of the many occasions where we get to mix business and pleasure in our job.
Barring a brief downpour in the middle of the event, weather was wonderful and mild. The Deep Maps team made the most of their time at the event to help spread the word about the project and also took some time to learn a bit about the marine life at the site as well. It is safe to say there was something for people of all ages with Mike being the first of the team to dive right in to the touch tank experience.
We had such a wonderful time exploring the area, learning about the marine creatures from all of the Touch Tank participants, and talking to visitors to the lough about their experience of West Cork’s coast. We would like to say a big thank you to everybody who participated in our questionnaires at the Touch Tank event at Lough Hyne. We really appreciated all of your support. Thanks as well to Dr. Rob McAllen (UCC), Terri Kearney (Skibbereen Heritage Centre), Cynthia Trowbridge (Oregon Institute of Marine Biology) and all of her visiting students.