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This week
Saturday 10th May Repeated Thursday 15th May
In this week’s ‘Open Country’, in the second of a 2-part special, Helen Mark explores the coastline and sealife surrounding the Isle of Mull.
In this week’s ‘Open Country’, in the second of a 2-part special focussing on the Isle of Mull, Helen Mark explores its varied sealife and dramatic coast.
Helen climbs aboard the yacht ‘Silurian’ and is joined by a team from the ‘Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust’, a charity dedicated to the conservation of Scotland’s whales, dolphins, and porpoises.
Due to complex tidal streams, varied topography and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, Hebridean waters are the most productive coastal area in the UK and contain a rich diversity of marine life. Nearly a third of the worlds species of whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) have been reported from these waters from the occasional mighty blue whale to the tiny resident harbour porpoise – making the Hebrides one of the most important habitats for cetaceans in Europe.
The Isle of Mull has also been described as a 'mecca' for geologists. Most of the island is made of lava and was torn apart from its 'neighbour' Greenland as the vast super-continent which once joined North America and Europe divided.
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