Cardigan Island

40 Mins from our holiday cottages
22 Miles from our holiday cottages
Dog Friendly

Gwbert-On-Sea, Cardigan, Ceredigion
SA43 1PR (Sat Nav)

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Cardigan Island is a small, 38 acres, uninhabited island in the estuary of the River Teifi.

It is known for having a small colony of grey seals and is owned and managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.

According to Wikipedia "Cardigan Island was once the home of puffins and Manx shearwater. A guide book in the 1890s referred to the puffins as "Welsh parrots”. In 1924 Welsh writer and naturalist Ronald Lockley wrote that there were probably 25 to 30 pairs on the island. However, in 1934 a ship ran aground on the island in a storm, and rats made it ashore. Over a period of years they ate the eggs and chicks of nesting seabirds, and wiped out the island’s population of puffin and Manx shearwater, which have never returned.”

The wrecked ship mentioned above is The Herefordshire lies in about 15 metres of water and is a regular diving haunt for my Cardigan Sub Aqua Club buddies and I.

Today birds such as guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, shags, fulmars and a variety of sea-gulls all nest on the island. Bottlenose dolphins and Atlantic grey seals are also often seen in the sea around the island.

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