LATEST
NEWS:
24
December 2013
Gales
eroded the Dorset cliffs on the Jurassic
Coast and uncovered a 1.5 metre (5ft)
long ichthyosaur
skeleton (in pieces) at the base of Black
Ven near Charmouth.
It was discovered by Richard Edmonds,
who works for the Jurassic
Coast world heritage site team. He found an unprecedented three ichthyosaur
skeletons last year due to increased coastal erosion caused by bad weather.
December
2013
Four
animals previously unknown to science have been discovered in deep water
off Scotland during surveys by Marine
Scotland. All were discovered around Rockall,
the rocky islet 260 miles (418 km) west of the Western Isles at a suspected
cold
seep at depths of up to one mile (1.6 km). The new gastropod
mollusc
Volutopsius scotiae and bivalve
mollusc Thyasira scotiae
have been named after the research vessel MRV
Scotia. Another clam, Isorropodon
mackayi, was named after mollusc expert
David
Mackay. The probable new species of marine
worm Antonbrunnia
has still to be named as a species.
Scotland's
Marine Atlas
17
December 2013
A
sub-adult Loggerhead Turtle,
Caretta
caretta, was washed ashore dead at Splash
Point, Worthing,
Sussex in the afternoon. It was a rainy day and I cycled past this point
west of the amusement pier, I noted a flock of twenty Crows
on the shingle but I did not look down on the syenite
rock sea defences or else I might have spotted it. Credit for the discovery
goes to Andrew Cole
who was photographing a landscape shot of the rocks in poor photographic
conditions. This may be the first discovery
of a Loggerhead Turtle
off Sussex as it was unexpected and I have not got records of a previous
discovery. The
turtle
was damaged with a missing flipper and it had died out at sea and had been
washed along until landfall on to this small promontory.Shoreham
Herald Report |
 |
 |
15
December 2013
Leucistic
Lobsters,
Homarus
gammarus, and Spiny lobster/Crayfish/Crawfish,
Palinurus
elephas, housed in a commercial holding
aquarium at Cushendall, County
Antrim.
These
larger than normal Lobsters (> 2 kg) were caught around Rathlin
Island,
(north of Ballycastle)
Northern Ireland.
|
Photographs
by Cathal McNaughton
on facebook
BMLSS
Lobsters
10
December 2013
New
shellfish regulations have been introduced in Scotland and the islands
to protect and regulate the fisheries. A Designation Order identifying
84 waters as ‘shellfish water protected areas’ has been made.
8
December 2013
In
the aftermath of the flooding on the east coast of England, seals
were seen scattered all over the dunes of Donna
Nook
in Lincolnshire. Grey Seals,
Halichoerus
grypus, are with
pups at this time of the year, but most seemed to be with their mothers,
although a few were found dead and others isolated, which happens every
year.
BMLSS Seals
5 -
6 December 2013
A
Storm
Surge coinciding with a high spring
tide
caused floods and coastal
erosion on the North Sea coast of
England and some minor floods on the eastern English Channel shore. The
environmental impact on wildlife seemed to be minimal but there were social
consequences with homes flooded and some houses washed into the sea, notably
at Hemsby, Norfolk, where
the the soft cliffs collapsed.
Hemsby
Beach after the Storm Surge
The
elevated
sea
level was higher than the devastating
floods of 1953
but the damage was much less because of improved sea
defences and advanced
warning.
Environmental
Agency Flood Damage Gallery
More
Images of Norfolk Shore Erosion
Cyclone
Xaver
22
& 25 November 2013
Dead Minke
Whale on Cromer Beach
Photograph
by Tom Insole
on flickr
Two
dead Minke Whales,
Balaenoptera
acutorostrata,
were washed up, one
each on the beaches of Cromer
and Sea Palling
on the Norfolk coast.
2
November 2013
A metre
long Siberian Sturgeon, Acipenser
baerii, was caught on rod and
line by Peter
Johnson off Greenhithe
Pier in the River Thames
estuary. It is was released back into the sea after capture. This
species is native to the Ob
river systems that flow into the Arctic Ocean, in Siberia. In its native
habitat it is considered anadromous
and able to migrate the sea and live in salt or brackish water. but it
is mostly to be found in the freshwater reaches of these large rivers.
Therefore, it has been found suitable for aquaculture
and the pet trade and the most likely reason for its appearance is that
was accidentally or deliberately released from a captive specimen.
Siberian
Sturgeon
Photographs
by Peter Johnson
BMLSS
Sturgeon 1
Previous
Sturgeon Record 2013
20
October 2013
A
deep water Greenland Shark,
Somniosusmicrocephalus,
was found freshly dead stranded at Embleton
Bay in Northumberland. The three metres long female shark
was recovered by staff of Newcastle
University and held frozen at their Dove
Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats. The Cetacean
Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) retrieved the shark whilst
carrying out demonstration necropsies for undergraduates at Newcastle University
and transported it to the Natural
History Museum in London, who have (Autumn
2014) completed preparing the shark as a specimen
for the national collection. This
large species of shark (> 7 metres & 1,400 kg) is usually found at
depths of 1000 metres in the Arctic and boreal Atlantic and is both rarely
recorded around the British Isles and relatively little is known of its
biology and bionomics.
30
October 2013
A
Humpback Whale, Megaptera
novaengliae, spotted in the North
Sea off the Norfolk coast is the first on written record. The whale spent
most of the morning swimming about two miles out to sea between Winterton
and Horsey.
October
2013
A Blackfish,
Centrolophus
niger, was caught in the North Sea
by Andrew Innes, skipper of "Daisy 2".
This
Blackfish
usually inhabits water of over 100 metres deep, and the North Sea is shallower.
It is unusual, but not unknown, for Blackfish
to be caught in the North Sea. Main sightings in catches are from off west
Scotland and off Ireland in deeper waters. The facebook
page includes a few other reports. It
is classified in the family Centrolophidae.
Earlier
Report 1998
British
Marine Life News 2011
BMLSS
Oil Disasters page
