Glenteenassig Valley, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry

Glenteenassig Valley 

Walkway Leading to Loch Slat, Glenteenassig Valley

If you from Tralee you know Glentennassig Valley, this valley will always come up on your Facebook feed, the minute we get fine weather here in Kerry. People tend to flock there but in reality during 8 months of the year the valley is empty. Its the closet area of its kind to Tralee, it has not got two lochs as some people seem to think but has actually four lochs draining the entire valley. On our course with the IT Tralee, we recently had a field trip to this very valley and something that struck me, was the consensus that the lochs and river here were somewhat empty of life. This is the attitude that has the entire valley destroyed at the moment.

Brown Trout, Dingle Peninsula

The river, lochs and all the streams there are full of brown trout which signifies the presense of Sea Trout as they are the same species. I have caught heaps of Sea Trout here. There also Salmon present and I have seen otters and kingfishers. The presense of monofilament nets here signifies that the locals definitely don't class the river as empty. A few years back a huge net spanning across Loch Slat was lifted by the Inland Fishery Board and I have personally reported at least four nets on the river. So this consensus is wrong and maybe this way of thinking has the valley in it self unmanaged and left to wreak and ruin.

Glenteenassig Valley, Collite Woodland

Now I completely understand that planted forestry needs to be cut down, thats the whole reason its put there, but is there a situation, when an area that has been planted, takes on a whole new life of its own. I am sure that before this valley was planted, there was no proper infrastructure on getting into this valley, the lochs were inaccessible and the area desolate. For me two things come into play, how do you value an area, was this valley better left untouched and kept as an area for the public to bring there kids and enjoy nature? Was the valley unsafe after the storms we witnessed over the last twenty years? I know from travelling the area on foot that in places there was more trees knocked then standing! One thing I do know is that the felling of these trees will vastly destroy any chance of Sea trout and Salmon stocks improving. Was proper procedure put in place, when the trees were being felled? I couldn't see much evidence that there was. Only time will tell but I will continue to enjoy this valley either way. 

Loch Slat, Glenteenassig Valley.

One of the many feeder streams in the Glenteenassig Valley