IT WAS weather for ducks and waders yesterday in Tralee – damp and suitable for the occasion of the official opening of a major wetlands centre in Co Kerry by Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar.
The €4.5 million Tralee Bay Wetlands visitor park has special hides from which to quietly watch wildlife.
It also has a viewing tower on the road to Blennerville that provides a bird’s eye view of the protected Tralee Bay Nature Reserve, part of a network of international wetland areas.
Mute swans, grey herons, various ducks, gulls and curlews have been spotted from the hides in recent weeks.
The project was in the planning stages for more than a decade to take advantage of the magnificent but underappreciated Tralee Bay and was designed by one the world’s leading wetlands consultancy groups, WWT Consulting, a British group that grew out of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in England and which returns profits to wetlands research.
Mr Varadkar said the new Tralee centre was a leading example of “soft adventure” tourism, one of the fastest-growing sectors in international tourism.
It offers wildlife boat rides, water sports, walking and cycling routes and is set to attract 70,000 extra visitors to Tralee a year.
The development features a viewing tower with panoramic views of the bay and links to nesting sites on the nature reserve.
It also has a multilingual safari boat ride through habitats reflecting the diversity of the wetlands environment, a 1.5-hectare artificial lake for light water sports activity, along with 2.2km of walking and cycling routes linking up with the existing riverside walk.
The new centre employs three full-time and 10 part-time staff, including an ecologist, in addition to five people in the lakeside cafe.
The wetlands will also be an educational resource and a focal point for local wildlife enthusiasts and research including Bird Watch Ireland and the Brent Geese Research group, the Minister added.
He paid tribute to the veteran ornithologist and broadcaster Frank King from Blennerville, whose advice was invaluable.
“Frank King from Blennerville has spent almost 80 years observing and studying the bird life on Tralee Bay and provided invaluable information which is contained in the new visitor exhibition,” Mr Varadkar said.
Funding of almost €3 million provided by Fáilte Ireland’s tourism capital investment programme, with the remainder from Tralee Town Council land sales.