Saltee Islands (609)
Ireland, Europe
Site overview
KBA status: confirmed
Year of last assessment: 2024
National site name: Saltee Islands
Central coordinates: Latitude: 52.1167, Longitude: -6.6000
System: terrestrial, marine
Elevation (m): 0 to 58
Area of KBA (km2): 1.47581
Protected area coverage (%): 99.99
KBA classification: Global/Regional TBD
Legacy site: Yes
Site details
Site description: The Saltee Islands (Great Saltee and Little Saltee) lie 5km offshore from Kilmore Quay in County Wexford. Both islands have exposed rocky cliffs and boulder beaches. The Great Saltee has not been farmed since the 1940s and Little Saltee supports some sheep grazing. Both islands have seasonally occupied dwellings and the larger island is popular with visitors serviced by ferries from Kilmore Quay.
Rationale for qualifying as KBA: This site is of imporance for breeding seabirds, especially Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica), Razorbill (Alca torda), Common Murre (Uria aalge). <div><br></div><div>For further details regarding seabird species, please see the project report from Auchincloss and Handley (2024), or the records associated with 'Populations' in BirdLife's WBDB. Existing IBA boundary used for 2024 reassessment. Seabird data was the primary focus when reassessing sites in the 2024 reassessment.</div>
Manageability of the site: Site identified based on BirdLife International's Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, under which manageability is strongly recommended but not explicitly documented
Habitats
| IUCN Habitat | Coverage % | Habitat detail |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial - Terrestrial | 50 | |
| Marine Coastal/Supratidal | 50 |
Threats
Summary of threats to biodiversity at KBA: Day-trippers, mainly to Great Saltee, may cause some disturbance to seabird colonies. NPW runs a long-term seabird population monitoring and ringing programme on the islands, which are a private bird sanctuary.<p></p>
Additional information
References: Auchincloss & Handley, 2024. Ireland: Important Bird and Biodiversity Area identification for seabirds (Report).<br><br>Beal, Martin, Steffen Oppel, Jonathan Handley, Elizabeth J. Pearmain, Virginia Morera-Pujol, Ana P. B. Carneiro, Tammy E. Davies, et al. ‘track2KBA: An R Package for Identifying Important Sites for Biodiversity from Tracking Data’. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 12, no. 12 (December 2021): 2372–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13713.<br><br>Critchley, Emma Jane, W. James Grecian, Adam Kane, Mark J. Jessopp, and John L. Quinn. ‘Marine Protected Areas Show Low Overlap with Projected Distributions of Seabird Populations in Britain and Ireland’. Biological Conservation 224 (August 2018): 309–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.007.<br><br>Giralt Paradell, O., Cañadas, A., Bennison, A., Todd, N., Jessopp, M., Rogan, E. (2024). Aerial surveys of cetaceans and seabirds in Irish waters: Occurrence, distribution and abundance in 2021-2023. Department of the Environment, Climate & Communications and Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage, Ireland. 260pp<br><br>Handley, Jonathan, Marie-Morgane Rouyer, Elizabeth J. Pearmain, Victoria Warwick-Evans, Katharina Teschke, Jefferson T. Hinke, Heather Lynch, et al. ‘Marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas for Penguins in Antarctica, Targets for Conservation Action’. Frontiers in Marine Science 7 (20 January 2021): 602972. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.602972.
Contributors: Site identified based on Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas by the BirdLife International Partnership