Sir, - In Lorna Siggins's report "Dolphin stranding may be due to the global warming" (The Irish Times, November 11th), an inaccurate picture emerged. As global warming is a serious issue for all of us this ought to be corrected.
The report quotes Dr Simon Bernour of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) as saying that the striped dolphin, known to science as the Euphrosine dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba (Meyen)) was first recorded in Ireland in 1985 and "has become more and more common in the 1990s". The dolphin is described as a tropical warm water species. The reason for the alleged increase in its numbers is that "the seas around Ireland are warming up quickly enough to change the distribution of (these) marine predators." This is followed by speculation about the recent floods, gales and fish distribution.
However, after the striped dolphin was first recorded in 1984 by Terry Bruton and John Greer, working in Ulster (1985 Irish Naturalists Journal 21:538540) a re-examination of all five common dolphin skulls in the National Museum in Dublin, in which I assisted, revealed that three were, in fact, striped dolphins and had been misidentified. The earliest of the three was stranded in the period 1855-1870, the second in 1898 and the third in 1912 (Colm O'Riordan and Terry Bruton 1986 Irish Naturalist's Journal 22:162-163).
At the time of the review by O'Riordan and Bruton five further stranded striped dolphins were identified (J. A. Darman 1986 Irish Naturalist's Journal 22:166; D. T. G. Quigley and J. S. Fairley, P. Smiddy, R. S. Taylor and J. Winn and T. Bruton 1986 Irish Naturalist's Journal 22:167).
It is clear, therefore, that striped dolphins have been common in Irish waters for a long time and to imply that they have not is inaccurate and misleading; certainly not science, perhaps a sort of sound-bite science?
The Irish Times has a responsibility to report facts, not sound-bites, especially on the deadly serious issue of global warming. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Paddy Sleeman, Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology, UCC, Cork.