EVENTS:
 

28-30 March 2008
The Porcupine Marine Natural History Society will be holding its annual meeting at Menai Bridge, Bangor, north Wales. There will be two days of talks (Friday and Saturday) followed by a field trip on the Sunday. The theme of hotspots is to enlighten the delegates to those locations or habitats that, through their natural (or otherwise) diversity of life, inspire biologists to investigate them.

Full Details
Booking Form
 

14 June 2008

Venue: Coronation Green, Shoreham-by-Sea
Admission: FREE

 

Adur will be one of the UK leaders in presenting an environmental exhibition of World Oceans Day on Coronation Green, Shoreham-by-Sea, as part of the Adur Festival

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LATEST NEWS: 

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26 March 2008
After a recent bout of northerlies in North Wales I took the dog for a walk down on Red Wharf Bay on Anglesey and found all sorts of things washed up. 
Brittlestars (various species) were particularly abundant on the upper shore, with patches a couple of inches (or more) thick. Common Starfish, Asterias rubens,  were also very abundant, as a rough guess at 5-10 per square metre. Species such as the Sand Starfish Astropecten irregularis, Heart Urchin Echinocardium cordatum, Dead Men's Fingers Alcyonium digitatum, Masked Crabs, Corystes spp., and various sipunculids (Peanut Worms) were also washed up in considerable numbers, as were various shark and ray eggcases. Of the more unusual species, I found three Angular Crabs, Goneplax rhomboides, a small Conger Eel (approx. 50 cm long) and a dead Chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax. 

Report by Daniel Ward on 
the Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean (Yahoo Group)

BMLSS Mermaid's Purses

23 March 2008
 

Over Easter, after some heavy storms with snow blowing in off the North Sea, I discovered hundreds of thousands of Razorfish, Ensis sp. (a bivalve mollusc), hundreds of Common Starfish, Asterias rubens, lots of Sunstars, Crossaster papposus, and Brittlestars washed up on the sands of Holkham Beach.

Report & Photographs by Rupert Smith

BMLSS Echinoderms

A Ratfish, Chimaera monstrosa, was washed up on the shore at Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire on the North Sea coast of England. This deep sea fish is a frequent capture in the Pink Shrimp fishery of the North Sea. 

Report, Comments and Photograph by Peter McGrath on the Runswick Bay Blogspot

Full Report

The fish has probably been dead for some time causing it to lose its patterns. 
NB. This is the first report of a stranding on these Marine Life News pages. 
Image when Alive

18 March 2008
Plans to proceed with enabling powers in the Marine Bill to introduce a Sea Angling Licence have been scrapped for 2008.

Hansard: Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

16 March 2008
 

Hundreds of the sea cucumber Thyone fusus, many exuding their guts and gonads as a response to the stress, were discovered washed dead on up on the shore Newborough in North Wales (only a few nautical miles from Dinas Dinlle). 

Report and Photographs by Liz Morris (Marine Ecological Solutions Ltd) 

BMLSS Echinoderms
BMLSS Beachcombing

12 March 2008
After the stormy weather, a dead Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, was discovered by Roger Adams walking on Wanson Beach, near Widemouth Bay, north Cornwall.

Cornish Wildlife Trust Report

BMLSS Turtles
 

This large eggcase was discovered on my local beach (Waterville, Co. Kerry, Ireland).. The size can be discerned from the tennis ball. It is large enough to be the eggcase of the endangered Skate, Dipturus (=Raja) batis, Report by Rosemary Hill BMLSS Mermaid's Purses

4 - 5 March 2008
Hundreds of thousands of Common Starfish, Asterias rubens, were washed on the shore of east Kent.
Picture Link

Report by B. Lewis on the Marine Wildlife of the NE Atlantic Yahoo Group

Thousands of Common Starfish were washed up on the coast of Kent between Pegwell Bay and Sandwich. 

BBC News Report

3 March - May 2008 onwards

A Bearded Seal, Erignathus barbatus, was spotted at Loch na Keal on the Isle of Mull, a large island in the Inner Hebrides, western Scotland. The healthy seal had hauled itself up on to some dry rocks when it was first seen. Subsequently, it has been unpredictable in its movements. The Bearded Seal was first seen by David Woodhouse (Mull Wildlife Expeditions) on 3 March 2008.

Photograph by Rob Baxter
Report by David Sexton (RSPB, Mull)

3 March 2008
A hexapus, or six-legged version of the Lesser or Curled Octopus, Eledone cirrhosa, was captured in a lobster pot off the coast of north Wales and put on show at the Anglesey Sea Zoo. It was only then it was discovered to have only six legs instead of the normal eight, and this may have a result of a birth defect rather than an accident. It was been claimed as a world's first as nobody seems to discovered one before. Its fame meant it was transferred to the Blackpool Sea Life Centre to attract a bigger audience. 

BBC News Report (2)
BBC News Report (1)
Yahoo News Report

BMLSS Octopuses
BMLSS Public Aquaria List (British Isles)

26 February 2008
The Angel Shark, Squatina squatina, Short-snouted Seahorses, Hippocampus hippocampus, and Spiny Seahorse, Hippocampus guttulatus (=H. ramulosus), will gain protection against being killed, injured, or taken from the wild from 6 April 2008 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. 
In addition, the possession or selling of the the Short-snouted and Spiny Seahorses’ will become an offence. It will also become an offence to damage or obstruct the Short-snouted and Spiny Seahorses’ place of shelter or disturb them in their place of shelter.

DEFRA Press Release

BMLSS Seahorses
Angel Shark: Red List of Endangered Species

23 February 2008
Two Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaengliae, were seen from the French coast off Le Portel near Boulogne-sur-Mer at the eastern end of the English Channel. 

La Voix du Nord Report

UK Cetnet Yahoo Group

18 February 2008
A 6.2 metre long baby Fin Whale, Balaenoptera physalis, was discovered washed up dead on a beach on the Lizard, south Cornwall. Local resident Derek Chapman had watched the whale swimming back and fore just off the beach at Porthallow the day before it stranded. He was very concerned to see it come in so close to the shore and realised that this was unusual.  He later found it dead among the rocks.
Fin Whales are the second largest animal on earth and only eight stranded animals have been recorded in Cornwall, the first in 1781.

Cornish Wildlife Trust Report

BMLSS Cetacean News Reports
Fin Whale (Cornwall 1999
Fin Whales Strandings Index 2004
Fin Whale washed up dead on the Isle of Wight 2007

15-22 February 2008
A Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, seen swimming in the northern Irish Sea off Portaferry, Northern Ireland at the first date was eventually washed up dead. It weighed over 200 kg.

BBC News Report

3 February 2008
A dead juvenile Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, beached alive at Putsborough on the north Devon coast. It was rescued from the cold British seas and transferred to the Blue Reef Aquarium at Newquay, Cornwall. To the amazement of the discoverers Diana and Pauline Bussell, a little blue crab crawled out from underneath the dinner plate-sized shell of the turtle. This turned out to the alien hitch-hiker known as the Columbus Crab, Planes minutus, which occasionally gets washed up on the shore with floating driftwood and other pelagic debris.

Western Morning News Report

BMLSS Turtles
BMLSS Crabs

1 & 5 February 2008
A Cuvier’s Beaked Whale, Ziphius cavirostris, was reported dead on Saligo Bay on the west coast of the Isle of Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides. 
Another one was reported dead on Machir Bay, Islay, and this time it was a female. It still had its tail flukes, dorsal fin and flipper intact but had not been dead as long as the previous stranded whale. 

Islay BirdingBlogspot

 
Cuvier’s Beaked Whale is a deep water species that feeds on squid and is rarely seen alive or dead in Hebridean seas. 
Islay Natural History Trust

31 January 2008 
A male Striped Dolphin, Stenella coeruleoalba, a relatively uncommon sight in inshore Cornish waters, was stranded alive on an ebbing tide on the south coast at Church Cove, Gunwalloe, near Helston. The dolphin was lying on the beach not far from the surf.  At first sight, it looked relatively unscathed but it was later found to have a bad injury and was euthanased. This was only the 14th Cornish stranding record for this species of dolphin and only the second one stranded alive.

Cornish Wildlife Trust Report

BMLSS Cetacea
Whales & Dolphins in British Seas (by Steve Savage)
Cornish Wildlife Mailing List
British Divers Marine Life Rescue

28 January 2008 
Guernsey commercial fisherman Rick Ferbrache brought me a Red Sea Bream (=Blackspot Sea Bream), Pagellus bogaraveo, caught off Portinfer Bay on the north-west coast of Guernsey.  It weighed 454 grams and was 32.6 cm long (total length).

Red Sea Bream were common in Guernsey waters until 1984 and then they disappeared.  During the last year or so they have been making a comeback to Guernsey waters.

Report and Photograph by Richard Lord (Guernsey)

Sealord Photography

BMLSS Sea Breams
 

24 January 2008

I discovered the southerly species of Sea Hare, Aplysia depilans, photographed above, a long way down the shore of  Belle Greve Bay shore on the east coast of Guernsey. The intertidal zone contained many more of the Common Sea Hare, Aplysia punctata, which comes inshore to breed in early spring. 

Report and Photograph by Richard Lord (Guernsey)

Sealord Photography

BMLSS Sea Hares
BMLSS Molluscs

21 January 2008 
 

Timber from the Greek-registered Ice Prince, which sank about 26 miles (42 km) off Dorset after a storm on 15 January 2008, began getting washed up on Worthing Beach in the evening of 18 January 2008 and and tonnes of pine planks littered the Sussex beaches from 20 January 2008. The usual debris was on the strandline including a dead Short-snouted Seahorse, Hippocampus hippocampus, discovered by Craig Vernoit on Brighton Beach just to the east of the Marina. A Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, was washed up dead west of Brighton Marina. 
BMLSS Whales & Dolphins (by Steve Savage)
Adur Coastal 2008
BMLSS Seahorses

BBC News Report
BBC News Pictures
More Pictures on  flickr
Dates Information by Jason Koen & Chris Everson

6 January 2008
A Triggerfish, Balistes capriscus, was  found on the beach on the high tide line at Machir Bay, north west coast of Islay, Scotland. 

Discovery by Alistair MacCormick (Islay)

Report and Photograph by Teresa Morris (Islay Wildscapes)

Triggerfish Reports 2008
BMLSS Triggerfish

5 & 14 January 2008
We have a report from Mr Meale who spotted what appears to be a Ocean Sunfish, Mola mola, found on Eccles Beach, Norfolk on 5 January 2008. A further report in the EDP published on Monday 14 January 2008 shows a picture of a Sunfish found on Sea Palling Beach, Norfolk.

Reports by Helen Not on Norfolk Seaquest

BMLSS Sunfish

3 January 2008
A rare Kemp's Ridley Turtle, Lepidochelys kempii, was washed up at Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn peninsula, north-west Wales. 
Kemp's Ridley Turtles are listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, with only 35 records of the Kemp's Ridley species in UK and Irish waters. According to the Marine Conservation Society the latest estimates suggest that only a few thousand adult females still nest on only one stretch of beach on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. 

BBC News Report

BMLSS Turtles
MCS Kemp's Ridley Turtle

A Grey Seal, Halichoerus grypus, was washed up dead on the shore at Sheringham in Norfolk with a large 35 cm wound reminiscent of a predator attack. The jury is out on the cause of the wound which could be as a result of fishing activity. 

Report and Photograph on the Sun Newspaper Web Page

Discussion on the Marine Wildlife of the NE Atlantic Yahoo Group
Large Shark 1968

The previous week in Kent we had a dead seal turn up with large wounds on it. They were circular and about 50 mm in diameter.

Report by Jon Bramley on the Marine Wildlife of the NE Atlantic Yahoo Group

BMLSS Seals

1 January 2008
Another dead juvenile Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta,  was recovered by staff from the Islay and Jura Seal Sanctuary after it washed up near Ardbeg, on the island of Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides, western Scotland. 

BBC News Report

Marine Conservation Society
MCS Adopt-a-Turtle
BMLSS Turtles
 
 

British Marine Life News 2007
 
 

 

Cornish Marine Life 2007 (Ray Dennis Records)
BMLSS Oil Disasters page

 

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