No crabs harmed in the making of this hunt

CAHERSIVEEN: IT MAY not have been the Great White Shark Hunt but the first Cahersiveen Crab Hunt proved just as exciting for the 30 or so children and adults who took up the challenge to boldly explore rock pools for crustaceans and other marine life yesterday.

Organised by Lucy Heneghan and Jane Mytton of Puffin and Hare Adventures, as part of the Cahersiveen Celtic Festival of Music and the Arts, the crab hunt saw children and adults gather at around 1.30pm at Black Strand, with its panoramic view across to Beginnish and Valentia.

"We're trying to encourage a sense of adventure in kids - very often today, kids are so protected, it's hard to get them out exploring," said Lucy, whose own love of wildlife was fostered by trips with her brother Jeremy with the Cork Young Naturalists.

That sense of adventure was thriving all around as children, armed with fishing nets and buckets and with adults in tow, were scampering excitedly over the bladder wrack-cloaked rocks and into pools to send a flurry of tiny creatures scurrying for cover.

"Look Mummy, look: I've got a baby crab. He's alive and everything; he's a little cutie - I'm going to find more," trilled seven-year-old Robyn Dowling, showing her find to her mother Alison before heading off with her friend Rachel O'Sullivan (7) in search of more adventure.

Nearby, sisters Dawn (12) and Francie (10) De Rohan Willner had just caught a gigantic crab and were showing it to Lucy and Jane before heading back to the shore with their nets to resume their search for wildlife.

Conor O'Connor (11) and his sisters Jessica (7) and Isabel (5) were out searching with their dad, Liam, and were intent on showing a whiskery-looking creature in their yellow bucket to Lucy and Jane to see whether they had caught a shrimp or a prawn.

The two intrepid organisers duly produced a wildlife guide and, flicking past pages of anemones and urchins, let the O'Connor children peruse the photographs to identify their whiskery guest as a baby prawn.

Following an hour of successful hunting, all the crabs and other wildlife were brought for identification by Lucy and Jane before being released back into rock pools to ensure that no wildlife was injured in the making of the first ever Cahersiveen Crab Hunt.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times