Reports
of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents
and conservation initiatives as they affect the fauna and flora of the
NE Atlantic Ocean
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27
March 2012
Marine
Strategy Framework Directive Consultation: UK Initial Assessment and proposals
for Good Environmental Status The
EU Directive requires Member States to take measures to achieve or maintain
Good Environmental Status (GES) for their seas by 2020.
GES involves protecting the marine environment, preventing its deterioration
and restoring it where practical, while using marine resources sustainably.
The
consultation ends on 18 June 2012.
defra
Information Page
25
March 2012
Discovered
stranded by the receding equinoctial spring tide, this Lesser
Octopus, Eledone
cirrhosa, was high and dry at Llandudno
on the north Wales coast.. I dug a shallow depression underneath it which
filled with water, allowing it to breath. Initially the pupil was almost
closed, but got larger after about ten minutes.
"I
was amazed how it could change colour and shape, and the feeling of the
tentacles gripping my fingers was quite strange. Anyway, after a brief
photoshoot, I'm happy to say she was free to carry on chasing crabs
and lobsters."
A
major gas leak from the Elgin platform, 150 miles off Aberdeen, has
and continues to pollute the North Sea with a sheen of of gas condensate,
and measuring six nautical miles in length. Total
E&P UK Limited believes the leak is coming from a rock formation
above the main reservoir, at a depth of 4,000 metres.
23
March 2012
Only
the second British mainland record of the or sea slater Dynamene
magnitorata was discovered at
Penzance,
Cornwall, by David
Fenwick (Aphotomarine).
This
very small (male > 6 mm) isopod was found on the side of a small
Corallina
covered rock, in a middle
shorerockpool at Chimney Rocks just west
of the Jubillee Pool. This is a southern species
known from around the Channel Islands. There is a close species, the dull
white Dynamene
bidentata found amongst barnacles
on the lower shore, mostly on the western coasts of the British Isles.
Early
March 2012
A
Slipper
Lobster,Scyllarus
arctus, caught in a creel off Salcombe,
south Devon, was returned alive. "These small
clawless lobsters are a range extension species and seem to be spreading
into British waters. This is about 35th I have records of and I should
appreciate any other reports. This was an ovigerous female and most females
found over the last eight years have been "in berry".
9
March 2012
A
spectacular
cliff fall occurred between Langdon
Cliffs and South
Foreland Lighthouse on the Kent coast when an area the size of a football
pitch suddenly fell away, sending thousands of tonnes of chalk
crashing 100 metres down on to the shore in an area known as Crab Bay,
part of the white
cliffs of Dover.
The
carcass of a smelly 10.7 metre (35 ft) long Sperm
Whale,
Physeter macrocephalus,
washed ashore on the sandy beach at Skegness
on the Lincolnshire North Sea coast.
19
February 2012
A
Bearded Seal, Erignathus
barbatus, was seen by lots of people on the beach at Monifieth
(north shore of Firth
of Tay) in the afternoon. Because of the scarcity of visits by this
Arctic seal, it may be the same individual
that was seen hauled out on a dock at Tayport
just after Christmas 2012.
23
January 2012
It
was only a matter of time before Humpback
Whales, Megaptera novaengliae, joined
the feeding activity off Hook
Head, County
Wexford
on the south-east coast of Ireland, given the recent run of Fin
Whales,
Balaenoptera physalis,
in the area. A previously unrecorded Humpback
Whale, was the nineteenth individual recorded
to date in Irish waters.
18
January 2012
An influx
of Arctic species of gulls
into the Scotland and the north of Ireland and England has been notable
during the coldest month of the year. A rarity was the appearance of a
Ross's
Gull,
Rhodostethia
rosea,
at Ardglass, County
Down, Northern Ireland. It was seen from the harbour wall at the mouth
of the harbour entrance, found at 3:20 pm,
and viewed until dark. This was the first
Ross's Gull for Northern Ireland in 14 years.
Eight
Iceland Gulls,
Larus
glaucoides,and three Glaucous
Gulls, Larus
hyperboreus, were also noted.
16
January 2012
The
largest ever Atlantic Cod,
Gadus
morhua,
angled in the English Channel weighed 19.8 kg (43 lb 9 oz)
was landed by boat by Chris Proctor
and caught 20 miles off Pevensey
Bay, East Sussex,
The
Bonaparte's
Gull, Chroicocephalus
philadelphia, is the American equivalent
of the Black-headed Gull. One
was spotted at Ballygalley,
County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on numerous (over 50) occasions. This
was the first one seen in Northern Ireland since 1998.
14
January 2012
A
smelly
decomposed carcass of a long dead whale washed
ashore by the fishermen's huts beneath the cliff at Marwick,
Birsay,
Orkney
Islands, attracted the arctic gulls
in like a magnet. Iceland Gulls,
Larus
glaucoides,and Glaucous
Gulls, Larus
hyperboreus, were joined by the far
rarer
Kumlien's Gull,
Larus
glaucoides kumlieni.
"With such a large amount of carrion there
is little desire to flee being shown by the birds and at times it was hard
to tell who was drooling the most the feasting gulls or the throng of birders
atop of the adjoining cliff."
13
January 2012
A
a pod of about a dozen Risso's Dolphins,
Grampus
griseus, was spotted by fisherman Rodger
Clarke off Abercastle,
about ten miles south of Strumble
Head, SW Wales.
The
Cardigan
lifeboat responding to call to five miles north of Poppit
was surrounded by a large pod of over a hundred Common Dolphins,
Delphinus
delphis, in Cardigan
Bay, Wales, on its return.
9 January
2012
A
juvenile 26.4 cm long Loggerhead
Turtle,
Caretta
caretta, was discovered alive on the rocks at along Widemouth
Bay on the north coast of Cornwall. This
young ocean traveller was likely to have been washed in by the recent gales.
Reports are rare in all months of the year, but especially so in the first
months of the year when the sea is too cold for their survival around the
British Isles.
8
January 2012
Killer
Whales, Orcinus orca, are
a regular sight around the Shetland
Islands, feeding on a variety of prey including seals.
A pod of four Killer Whales
kept a crowd of wildlife watchers entranced for hours on a still afternoon,
An
adult female led one immature whale and two even younger whales from the
south west tip of Shetland at West
Voe round to the east of the islands, swimming up to Sound
of Mousa where they were last seen in the afternoon as it got dark.
Shetland Wildlife tour operator Hugh Harrop
said "the most exciting part of the experience
was observing the two youngest whales
catching small birds, an unusual but not unheard of spectacle. We witnessed
the two young ones turning on a sixpence,
diving and slapping their tails and watched a Long
tailed Duck (or 'Calloo'
), Clangula
hyemalis, come to a bitter end."
4 January
2012
A
two metre long Blue Shark, Prionace
glauca, was washed up alive on to
the beach at West
Bay, Dorset, and hauled back into the water by Jeannette
Longley, but it was found dead on the shore
at Burton Bradstock
shortly afterwards.
3
January 2012
A
young Kemp's Ridley Turtle,
Lepidochelys
kempii, was discovered on the shore
at Tresilian
Bay, near Llantwit
Major, on the south Wales coast. This was the second of these young
turtles
discovered dead after the gales since
Christmas
2011.
These endangered
turtles breed on the coasts of Mexico and are usually found in the Gulf
of Mexico and were thought to have blown across the Atlantic Ocean.
The turtles are likely to have perished in the cold seas.
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