Beach clean and Basking Sharks

On Saturday (18 April) around 35 local residents and volunteers turned out in stunning sunshine to help The Highland Council’s Countryside Rangers undertake the annual spring beach clean at Dunnet Bay, north Caithness. A huge amount of litter was collected completely filling the skip and the subsequent second large pile of rubbish required a second skip to remove it.  

The 2015 beach clean was again registered with the independent charity ‘Keep Scotland Beautiful’ clean-up campaign. This year the clean-ups are sponsored by Greggs the bakers who provided some tasty treats for volunteers to enjoy during a welcome break.  

One very interesting find during the clean-up was a satellite tag from the Basking Shark Monitoring Project run jointly by Scottish Natural Heritage and the University of Exeter. The information downloaded from these tags records where the shark has been and what it has been up to. The Basking Shark satellite tag was an added financial bonus to one lucky couple volunteering as there is a reward for returning these tags.  

Countryside Ranger Paul Castle said: “The great weather ensured an excellent turn out and I cannot thank folk enough for their help in removing that huge amount of litter from the beach. The help from the Highland Council waste team in Caithness and local crofter David Glass is invaluable to the success of our beach cleans.”