Fungie, the Dingle Dolphin. The disappearance and sad end of Fungie, the famous, solitary Dingle Dolphin [Without Prejudice]

Fungie, the famous Dingle Dolphin [circa 1979 -2020] is allegedly, believed to have been caught in the "cod end" of a sprat-fishing, pair-trawling, pelagic trawler net and drowned in the week Tuesday, October 13th - 18th, 2020, by pair-trawlers trawling for sprat outside Dingle Harbour in Dingle Bay.

Indiscriminate, Unregulated, Unsupervised, No TAC [Total Allowable Catch], no quota sprat / pilchards / anchovies (forage fish) fishing still allowed in Irish inshore (12nm) and coastal waters (6nm) , bays, estuaries and inlets (within the baseline) by the former Dept. of Agriculture Minister contrary to all scientific advice from ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea]; all conservation NGOs including Bird Watch Ireland and IWDG [Irish Whale and Dolphin Group]; and 99% of Irish inshore fishermen and by all marine ecotourism boat operators.

The Sad Tale of Fungie, the Dingle Dolphin's Disappearance and Death!

Out of the blue, I had a phone call the other day from an acquaintance on the South coast who informed me - like the wedding guest accosted in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem - "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - that he knew what happened to Fungie, the famous Dingle Dolphin.

["God save thee, Ancient Mariner!
From the fiends that plague thee thus! -
Why look'st thou so?" - "With my own cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS!"]

It appears from his conversation that you can substitute "pelagic net" for "cross bow" and "Fungie the Dingle Dolphin" for "ALBATROSS"

Fungie first appeared at the mouth of Dingle Harbour in 1983. It is estimated that he was about 4 years old at the time he arrived and he took up residence there (for 37 years!), initially following the fishing boats in and out of the harbour. He gradually became more and more well-known and he became the iconic centre of a marine tourism business that brought many thousands of visitors to Dingle over  the years. In 2019 he was estimated by experts to be at least 40 years old and was entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest solitary dolphin in the world. He was last seen in Dingle on October 13th, 2020 and was "officially" declared missing around October 17th / 18th, 2020. He was never seen alive since, and many people like to believe that perhaps he disappeared out into the blue from which he came, or joined a pod of visiting bottlenose dolphins who may have taken care of him in his old age - as dolphins, including killer whales who are also dolphins, are known to do.

Unfortunately, the truth may be very different..........................................

Pelagic pair-trawling for forage fish*** (sprat / pilchards/ anchovies) in Irish Inshore and Coastal waters, Bays and Estuaries results in Cetaceans (Dolphins and Harbour porpoises ) being caught and drowned in the towed net.

The author of this blog has now received unsolicited information from an acquaintance on the South coast that he was assured by a trusted fisherman friend* of long standing, that on the week that Fungie disappeared, a pair of trawlers, pair-trawling for sprat outside Dingle harbour, allegedly caught a mature bottlenose dolphin in the "cod end" of the fishing trawl-net and the dolphin was dead when taken on board in the net, having being allegedly caught in the net  and drowned while being towed.

Obviously, nobody did an autopsy or scientific examination of  the alleged dead bottlenose dolphin while on board or took a photo for photo-identification purposes (!) but this was the exact time-frame that Fungie was last seen alive in Dingle Harbour and a few days later reported missing.

No statutory proof can be ascertained that this mature bottlenose dolphin, allegedly caught and drowned in the net, was Fungie, but what are the chances that this was another bottlenose dolphin? At that time bottlenose dolphins only very occasionally came into Dingle Bay, unlike nowadays when we get a lot of the "Shannon dolphins" visiting Dingle (and Brandon) Bay in pods of up to thirty individuals. Common dolphins are much more plentiful in Dingle Bay and occasionally  the white coloured Risso's dolphins - although much scarcer now than formerly with the increased speed and volume of marine traffic in Dingle Bay which seems to have displaced them. The fact that the large, mature bottlenose dolphin was allegedly caught in the "cod end" of the pair-trawl the very week that Fungie disappeared, indicates that it was indeed Fungie.
There is also the possibility, of course, that the mature bottlenose dolphin, whether it was Fungie or another of his kin, that was allegedly caught in the "cod end" of the pair-trawl net was caught post mortem and not caught live in the trawl.

It now appears that dolphins (Common and Bottlenose), Harbour porpoises, and  seals are a by-catch of this unregulated sprat / pilchard / anchovy fishery which most fair-minded people would regard as an immoral and unsustainable fishery scooping up spawning shoals of forage fish in bays and estuaries and selling on this vital part of the marine food chain - for seabirds; cetaceans; commercial fish stocks including herring, mackerel, hake, pollack and cod; inshore commercial fishermen; angling boats; marine tourism boats - and sold for fishmeal to feed pigs; salmon farms in Scotland; dog food and cat food; and fertiliser at about €150 / €200 a ton to the fisherman.

For some unknown reason (?) the Minister for Agriculture, who is the Minister in charge of arranging fish quotas based on recommendations from ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea] and representing the Irish State who are supposed to represent the democratic wishes of the Irish people, is unwilling to put a blanket ban in place for this unsustainable fishery which is so destructive of the marine food chain, based on the EU approved Precautionary Principle** first approved by the EU in February 2000, until  a proper scientific assessment can  be made of various stocks of forage fish - mainly sprat / pilchards and anchovy - and quotas issued or not depending on these scientific assessments.

At the moment, the precautionary recommendations of ICES - the body tasked with giving the scientific advice for setting TAC [Total Allowable catch for a species] for an Irish National Quota for sprat for 2024 was a total catch not exceeding 2,240 tons per annum, but the recorded catch for the year 2024 was over 17,000 tons, eight times the recommendation (by ICES) and there is allegedly plenty of anecdotal evidence of unrecorded landings and lack of any official port inspections or records of inspections by the SFPA [Sea Fisheries Protection Authority] becuase sprat or any other of the forage fish like pilchards, anchovies and sand eels are non-quota species.
The author of this blog previously tried to get information from the SFPA based in Clonakilty, Co. Cork under the FOI Act [Freedom of Information Act] but was denied under various technicalities and generally found that trying to get any information from them re sprat inspections and landings was like trying to deal with the Stasi, and their  response to  queries under the FOI Act about the inspection regime or otherwise for sprat landings in various ports was hostile and antagonistic.
Perhaps a fully accredited member of the press or a journalist, might be able to force the SFPA to divulge the information under the FOI  Act, re their records of inspections or non-inspections for sprat / pilchard / anchovy landings in various ports including Fenit, Dingle, Castletownbere and Baltimore.


Forage Fish [sprat / pilchards, sand eels (lance fish), anchovy] the poor man's fish - but the most important fish in the marine food web and the base of the marine  food chain
Sprat are regarded as a non-quota species because they are technically regarded as having no commercial or economic value and are treated as a "data limited" species without any management plan or quota, Stocks are now on the brink of collapse and the same will happen to stocks of pilchards (closely related to sprat) and anchovy, all of which are of enormous importance in the evolving marine food chain.

Initially, an attempt was made by the Irish State to allow certain size trawlers catch the forage fish within certain areas and exclude larger trawlers but this was rightly shown to be unconstitutional in the High Court.

What is needed now is a Moratorium on all fishing for forage fish [sprat / pilchards, anchovy, sand eels), based on the EU approved Precautionary Principle, on all pair-trawling for forage fish in all Irish inshore (within 12 miles) and coastal waters and bays, inlets and estuaries by all pelagic trawlers until a TAC and quota system can be allocated to individual boats based on scientific assessment of stocks. Surely, this is in the long-term interest of the fisherman as well as the other interest involved including the seabirds, cetaceans, commercial fish stocks, conservation NGOs, inshore fishermen, angling boats and marine tour operators.

This, at least, would stop the wilful destruction of the marine food chain by a very few irresponsible fishermen, especially targeting fish at the bottom of the food chain and with the current by-catch of dolphins, harbour porpoises and seals caught in the "cod end" of pair-trawls, towed by a very small number of large pelagic trawlers, many if not most of them grant-aided by BIM [Bord Iascaigh Mhara] - the Irish Semi-State dealing with grants for fishing, aquaculture and marine tourism related projects and enterprises - to catch pelagic fish, mainly herring and mackerel, in offshore waters, not shoals of forage fish in coastal bays and estuaries.

BIM have recently spent millions in grant aiding marine tourism boats and fishermen in diversification grants from the fishing sector. The marine tourism sector, especially in Cork and Kerry in SW Ireland, now earns a substantial multiple of the value that these few large pelagic trawlers make from their destructive fishing for sprat / pilchards, anchovy in inshore and coastal waters, bays and estuaries. Also, marine tourism enterprises contribute a multiple in socio-economic value to their local coastal communities devastated by the downturn in the fishing industry since we joined the EU and since drift netting for salmon was banned. Yet, these BIM grant-aided large pelagic trawlers are allowed to destroy the food chain that brings these dolphins and whales to our shores providing employment for ex-fishermen and others in the marine tourism sector and filling our local pubs, restaurants, hotels, B and B's and Airbnb with these high spending visitors.
These large pelagic trawlers target forage fish at the bottom of the food chain, leaving nothing for commercial fish of higher trophic value to eat. Because the pollack has nothing left to eat, the inshore fisherman cannot fish for pollack and yet another livelihood is gone and the local coastal community is all the poorer. There is nothing for seabirds like gannets to eat and nothing for dolphins, whales and porpoises and by extension nothing for the burgeoning Dolphin & Whale watching tour boats to show their passengers. This grant-aided, wilful destruction of our national inshore marine resource is happening all the way from the Shannon Estuary; Tralee Bay; Brandon Bay; Dingle Bay as far inshore as Inch beach and even Ventry Harbour; St. Finian's Bay; Kenmare Bay; Bantry Bay and all along the south and west coast of Cork, which are all inside the "baseline" from whence the 6nm inshore limit starts.
The present Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity,  Christopher O'Sullivan T.D.  was quite active in calling for an end to unregulated and non-quota fishing for forage fish in Irish inshore and coastal waters before he attained his present portfolio, and it is to be hoped that in conjunction with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon T.D., together they can bring a new focus on this issue and at the very least insist on the application and strict adherence to the precautionary quota of circa 2,240 tons per annum as advised by ICES, the scientific body with the necessary scientific expertise and credentials.

An acquaintance of mine, Chris Fischer, ex (commercial) fisherman and owner / expedition leader of the great white shark research vessel "Ocearch" -  formerly the crabber named "Arctic Eagle" of Deadliest Catch fame -  recently visited the west coast of Ireland with his vessel and research team and tried to attract predators to their baited lines. After about three weeks effort they concluded that apart from the absence of great white sharks in Irish waters that the inshore and  coastal waters were effectively a dead zone. He told me the the inshore waters of the east coast of North America were in a similar situation a few years ago until all inshore fishing for forage fish was prohibited and that within a few  short years the recovery in commercial fish stocks and bird and cetacean activity was  phenomenal.
Is it really too much to expect our government [Dept. of Agriculture, Food & the Marine and Dept. for Nature, Heritage & Biodiversity (NPWS)]  to do something similar, to protect and enhance our marine resources and environment for everyone including seabirds, cetaceans and commercial inshore fishermen, to keep our local communities alive.

Summary: Options for continued Forage Fish [Sprat / Pilchard / Anchovy / Sand eel]  Fishing in Irish Inshore and Coastal waters.

1. Moratorium on all fishing for forage fish within the 6-mile limit by all fishing vessels, citing the Precautionary Principle, until the inshore and coastal stocks are scientifically assessed and a sustainable quota (if any) ascertained.

2. In the absence of a temporary moratorium, the precautionary quota approved by ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea] for all forage fish stocks in Irish inshore and coastal waters to be applied. The ICES precautionary quota for sprat in Irish waters for year 2024 was 2,240 tons. Alternatively, a scientific-monitoring TAC only allowed, to properly assess the stock quality, quantity and sustainability.

3. A clear and unambiguous statement from SFPA that landings of all forage fish [sprat / pilchards/ anchovy / sand eels] for 2025 season at all ports by pelagic trawlers are recorded so that the true amount of forage fish being landed can be ascertained and that they give previous records of landing inspections or reason for non-inspections under FOI requests. In the absence of this information, it appears that the SFPA are ignoring landings of forage fish by some pelagic trawlers in various ports, because they are a non-quota species.


Fungie, the Dingle Dolphin's Legacy

Although this whole episode can be seen as a very sad reflection on Irish marine legislation and quota management or mis-management, in some ways it would be a fitting tribute to the memory of Fungie if his alleged death in a pair-trawl could help in some small way towards a Moratorium on fishing for forage fish by all trawlers (big and small) in Irish inshore and  coastal waters, bays and estuaries and no inshore and coastal pair-trawling for forage fish (sprat / pilchards, anchovy, sand eels) allowed until the issue of catching cetaceans as a by-catch is addressed and sustainable quotas for sprat / pilchards / anchovy ascertained for fishermen based on proper scientific assessment of stocks and sustainability of the fishery, taking into account their importance towards the other commercial fisheries that rely on their presence in the marine food chain.


That would be a very good outcome for all, including fishermen, from this sad tale about Fungie.

Log of the Whale Watching Tour Boat M. V. "Blasket Princess"

Mick Sheeran                                      10.06.2025


                                    Notes:
*This may well be a case of " Dúirt bean liom, gur dúirt bean leí " an old Irish seanfhocal /  proverb literally meaning " A woman told me that a woman told her ",  implying that the truth may have been elaborated upon in the telling, but both tellers in this case seem very genuine, and with no agenda only to unburden and tell the truth

** The Precautionary Principle

The Precautionary Principle is an approach to risk management, where, if it is possible that a given policy or action might cause harm to the public or the environment and if there is still no scientific agreement on the issue, the policy or action in question should not be carried out. However, the policy or action may be reviewed when more scientific information becomes available. The Principle is set out in Article 191 on the Functioning of the European Union [TFEU].
The concept of the Precautionary Principle was first set out in a European commission communication adopted in February 2000, which defined the concept and envisaged how it would be applied. The Precautionary Principle may only be applied if there is a potential risk to the public or the  environment.
Source: EU - Lex

***Forage Fish:

Forage fish. also commonly known as prey fish, bait fish or whitebait  in Irish waters consist of the Clupeidae family (sprat / pilchards / young herring) and the Ammodytidae family (sand eels / lance fish) listed below in order of importance and abundance:

Sandeels / sand eels (lance fish) - Lesser sand eel (Ammodytes tobianus) Maximum length 20 cm (8") usually found in or over sandy bottom under 20 metre depth and Greater sand eel (Hyperoplus lanceolatis) Maximum length 25 cm (10") usually found in or over sandy bottoms over 20 metre depth. Sand eels usually have site fidelity of about 20 miles to their "home" ground. They usually come to the surface at night to feed on plankton, also during the day to feed on Spring plankton blooms and when spawning. They are a very important prey species for cetaceans; higher trophic value commercial fish stocks; seabirds especially puffins, razorbills, guillemots, kittiwakes, Arctic terns and Manx shearwaters.

The Irish South and West Fish Producer's Organisation presently [June, 2025] laud the presence of humpback whales ( and the continued presence of the orca "Aquarius") in Dingle Bay as proof that forage fish stocks are healthy, but these cetaceans are feeding on sand eels at the moment - not on  sprat, pilchards or anchovy - as any 5/8 fisherman would know. There is a rich bloom of Calanus finmarchicus zooplankton in Dingle Bay at the moment and the strong tides and currents distribute this planktonic bloom towards the seabed and midwater where the sand eels form large shoals to feed. This can be seen from the puffins bringing rows of sand eels neatly arranged in their beaks, back to their one chick in their Blasket island burrow and the dipping kittiwakes and  terns, and diving guillemots, razorbills and Manx shearwaters, and the absence of any diving gannets who are waiting hungerly for the sprat / pilchard / anchovy shoals to appear before they are hoovered up by the greedy, unsupervised,  pelagic trawlers part-funded by taxpayer's money [BIM].
In fact "bird clouds" of gannets sky-diving on prey are a rare sight in Dingle Bay now since local forage fish stocks have been decimated and the author has no idea where the gannets from little Skellig now go to feed to support their young and there is a lot of concern about this internationally important gannetry, one of the largest in the world - especially as they are also very vulnerable to the present ongoing bird flu epidemic due to their naturally and very crowded breeding preference and close proximity on this relatively small rock.
You do not need an echo sounder or sonar or a drag net to see what is swimming beneath the sea surface. You just need to watch the seabirds, their numbers and where  they congregate and the different types of seabirds and their diving habits and preferences will tell you which type of prey they are after and whether it is Calanoid copepods (zooplankton) , Sand eels or Sprat / Pilchards.

European Sprat (Sprattus sprattus). Maximum length 8 - 15 cm (3" - 6"). The most commonly-targeted forage fish in Irish inshore and coastal waters, bays, and estuaries usually pair-trawled by pelagic trawlers while waiting for the start of the herring and mackerel quota season or when their pelagic quota is filled.
They are a very important prey species for cetaceans, especially for Humpback whales migrating past the west and SW coast of Ireland from the higher latitudes towards the breeding grounds off Cape Verde and the Caribbean. They are also an important prey species for commercial fish of higher trophic value like cod, haddock and pollack and for seabirds, especially gannets and Manx shearwaters.

Pilchards (Sardinia pilchardus) are larger than sprat, and often called "sardines". Sprat are smaller and often referred to and marketed as "brisling sardines". Pilchards can reach 20 cm (8") in length and sprats can reach 12 cm (6") in length. The sprat can be distinguished from the pilchard by a deeper but narrower body, stronger spines on the belly and the dorsal fin of the sprat is posterior to the ventral fins, and the dorsal fin of the pilchard is anterior to the ventral fins.

Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) Maximum length of adult anchovy is 10 - 25 cm (4" - 10"). They are recent forage fish recruits to Irish waters due to climate change and a general northerly shift of marine species with warming waters. They are likely to become more plentiful in years to come and need  to be regulated with specific quotas as do all of the forage fish mentioned in order to maintain a healthy marine ecosystem.


"Forage fish are the unsung heroes of the sea. Forage fish are critical to healthy marine eco systems. They are critical to the food web, transferring energy from the plankton to larger predators"
Source: National Wildlife Federation


**** The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

For some reason, when I was first told the tale of the sad demise of Fungie, the Dingle Dolphin, caught in the "cod end" of a sprat-fishing, pair-trawling, pelagic trawler, I immediately thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem  "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". You can read the complete 144 verses (!) of the poem here (recommended):

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834 

Perhaps the original source of the teller of this sad tale was trying to clear his conscience like the ancient mariner who shot the albatross with his cross-bow and brought bad luck to all of his crew and vessel, until he blessed some sea-creatures swimming around his abandoned and spectre-like vessel and immediately:

"The self-same moment I could pray:
And from my neck so free
The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."

The penance given to the ancient  mariner is that he must continuously tell his tale:

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass. Like night, from land to land;
I have strange powers of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach."


Disclaimer:

The author of this Tale in no way wishes to accuse anyone of deliberately trying to kill Fungie, the famous, solitary Dingle Dolphin, and there is no real proof, other than circumstantial, that the mature bottlenose dolphin allegedly caught in the "cod end" of the net of the two pelagic trawlers fishing for sprat outside Dingle Harbour in October 2020 was Fungie, the Dingle Dolphin.

However, what is now apparent, is that dolphins, harbour porpoises and  seals are regularly caught in these large nets which are towed between two powerful trawlers through "marks" - shoals of (spawning) forage fish which show up as dense marks on the echo sounder and sonar. The mesh size on the cod end of these trawl nets is 16mm [a square mesh size of 8mm X 8mm, but mesh size is the distance between the stretched, opposite two diagonal points of the square mesh from knot to knot] and nothing escapes from the towed net. Even doubling the mesh size to allow juvenile forage fish to escape, as some suggest, would make no difference, as once the net is towed through a dense shoal of forage fish the density and forward thrust of the tow crams everything into the cod end.

Dolphins, harbour porpoises, seals, and whales, as well as seabirds like shags, gannets, Manx shearwaters, also naturally hunt these shoals of forage fish which are mainly sprat and / or pilchards, and for the last few years increasing shoals of anchovy, as our waters warm, and various fish species move further north towards colder more productive waters.

Apart from the destruction being caused to our inshore and coastal marine ecosystems as a result of this unregulated, uncontrolled, and un-supervised fishing effort by a very few large pelagic trawlers in inshore waters, the issue of by-catch and death by drowning of dolphins, harbour porpoises and  seals in these large nets needs to be urgently addressed.

The issue of this unsustainable fishing for sprat / pilchards /anchovy and other forage fish in Irish inshore and coastal waters, estuaries and bays by a tiny minority of large pelagic trawlers has now become a serious animal (marine mammal) welfare issue and as such urgently needs proper regulation, protective legislation and onboard animal welfare supervision for marine mammal welfare issues if it is allowed to continue.

Marine mammals have much in common with terrestrial mammals like Homo sapiens, such as suckling their young, and many humans feel a genuine affinity for these intelligent animals, and are unaware of the predatory practices of these very few pelagic trawlers that trawl without any supervision close inshore in bays, estuaries and inlets on the spawning shoals of forage fish and the damage that they cause to the food source of whales, dolphins and porpoises and the mortality rate for cetaceans caught in their nets. This is an issue that both BIM, who grant-aid these supposedly offshore pelagic trawlers with grants for safety, communication and navigation equipment including very expensive and sophisticated echo sounders and sonars that can target and get a mark on these shoaling forage fish that come close inshore to bays and estuaries to spawn, and the animal welfare officer of IWDG need to urgently address  to prevent the same fate happening to another potential FUNGIE.