harbour seal

Nonmigratory, earless seal (Phoca vitulina) found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Harbour seals are whitish or grayish at birth, generally gray with black spots as adults. The adult male may reach a length of about 6 ft (1.8 m) and a weight of almost 300 lb (130 kg); the female is somewhat smaller. Found along coastlines and in a few freshwater lakes in Canada and Alaska, the harbour seal is a gregarious animal that feeds on fish, squid, and crustaceans. It is of little economic value and in some areas is considered a nuisance by fishermen.

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This article is about the waterway, see Milford Haven for the town that takes its name from the harbour.

Milford Haven is a natural harbour in Pembrokeshire, West Wales.

It is formed by the Pembroke River and the Daugleddau estuary, and winds west to the sea. As one of the deepest natural harbours in the world, it is a busy shipping channel, trafficked by ferries from Pembroke Dock to Ireland, oil tankers and pleasure craft. Admiral Horatio Nelson, visiting the harbour with the Hamiltons, described it as the next best natural harbour to Trincomalee in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and "the finest port in Christendom".

Shipping port

Milford Haven has the largest port in Wales. It is also the fifth largest port in the United Kingdom. Its association with the petro-chemical industry started with the opening of the first oil terminal and oil refinery in 1960; unfortunately this coincided with a serious oil-spill from Esso Portsmouth, the first oil tanker to unload there. Since then, there have been numerous spills of varying magnitude, providing the port authority with a great deal of experience. Uniquely at the time, the harbourmaster instituted the principle of cleaning up first and allocating the blame (and the responsibility of paying for it) later. Two LNG Terminals are under construction in 2006. There are two large oil refineries nearby which represent one fifth of the United Kingdom's oil refining capacity.

This is the location of the Sea Empress oil spill in 1996, initially thought to be one of the most devastating oil tanker disasters the UK has ever seen. In the event, recovery has been surprisingly good, perhaps partly because of the very strong tides; the Torrey Canyon spill in 1968, affecting shores further south around southern Cornwall and northern France, was actually far more damaging - and Torrey Canyon had been heading for Milford Haven.

Shipping operations in Milford Haven are managed by the independent Milford Haven Port Authority as a trust port. The port authority has responsibility for managing Milford Docks, Milford Marina and Pembroke Port and Ferry Terminal.

The port authority started promoting Pembrokeshire as a cruise destination in 2003 and passenger numbers have steadily increased since then. In July 2008, the first transatlantic liner, the Maasdam arrived in Milford Haven.

Power generation

As a first stage of a wave power plant, there will be some testing at West Dale Bay.

Notes

References

1. Oil pollution in a major oil port, Capt. G. Dudley, in Ecological Effects of Oil Pollution (ed. E.B.Cowell), Inst. Petroleum, London, 1971

External links

• Milford Haven Port Authority
• BBC Wales: South West: Milford Haven
• www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Milford Haven