Electronic News Service       March  2000        ISSN  1464-8156

With ceaseless motion comes and goes the tide 
Flowing, it fills the channel vast and wide.
Then back to sea, with strong majestic sweep 
It rolls, in ebb yet terrible and deep.

Porcupine 2000

The marine natural history of the NE Atlantic

Approaches to Identification

(Plymouth, 17th-19th March 2000)
 

The Porcupine Natural History Society is pleased to announce that this year's spring meeting will be held in Plymouth and will run from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th March 2000. Oral and poster presentations are being solicited which focus on all aspects of identification within the marine environment. 

Link for Further Details
 

World Oceans Day

World Oceans Day was first declared as 8th June at the Biodiversity Conference “Earth Summit” of World Leaders in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Events will occur all around the world on and around this day. World Oceans Day offers the opportunity for people to join in with others to increase the understanding of the wildlife of the oceans and the marine environment. 

The British Marine Life Study Society will be participating in the Adur Exhibition to be held at Shoreham-by-Seaon 3 June 2000.Members in other parts of the British Isles are encouraged to organise their own exhibitions. 
 

World Oceans Day 2000 (Link)

Wembury Bay  Rockpool Rambles
Contact  Wembury Marine Centre  Tel:  01752 862538

Leaflet from Devon Wildlife Trust  Tel:  01392 279244.

Coastal Visitors Centre
Salisbury Gardens
Dudley Road
Ventnor
Isle of Wight
PO38 1EJ

Tel:  01983 855400
EMail: coastcent@iwight.gov.uk

The Centre covers many aspects of the coastal zone, which include coastal flora and fauna, marine and inter-tidal archaeology, coastal defence and particularly coastal instability issues.

Husavik

The Whale Watch capital in Iceland is based at Husavik.  Sights include Blue Whales, Humpbacks, Orca, Minkes and Sei Whales, dolphins, porpoises, plus Northern Bottle-nosed Whales.

The page for whale and dolphin spotting around Britain has not been prepared yet.  If you are interested in marine wildlife, including marine mammals, and are planning a holiday in the UK, especially Scotland, it is work clicking on the image "SeaProbe" and having a look at the page:

Also

New Quay Dolphin Monitoring Group, Cardigan Bay, Wales
http://www.ceinewydd.co.uk/

Dolphins, Porpoises and Whales of the Moray Firth
http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/dolphins.htm

Cornwall:
Dolphins are reported from the south coast of Cornwall regularly during the summer. The Lizard peninsula is a good vantage point. 

Shetland Isles:
Sumburgh Head, the southernmost trip is a regular spot for spotting whales and dolphins as is the ferry to the islands.

Minimising disturbance to Cetaceans from recreation at sea
http://www.wildlife-countryside.detr.gov.uk/whales/rec.htm

Minimising disturbance to Cetaceans from Whale watching operations
http://www.wildlife-countryside.detr.gov.uk/whales/whale.htm
 

31 January 2000
A decomposing Sperm Whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is washed ashore at Vaila on the Shetland Islands. There are close-up photographs of the huge whale by John Leach on the Shetland Wildlife Pages.

28 January 2000 
A crab fisherman gave me a live nudibranch Tritonia hombergi.  I placed it in a black bucket with aeration and it spawned on 1 February 2000. It weighed 35 grams after spawning and it was 12 cm long when crawling... quite a frilly beautiful animal.  The crab fisherman who gave it to me said that he was noticing a lot of spawn on his crab potting gear.  It appears the Tritonia hombergi crawled into his pot to spawn. 

Report by Richard Lord (Guernsey)
EMail:fishinfo@guernsey.net

Other Records

January 2000
Large Cod, Gadus morhua, are being caught on rod and line from chartered fishing boats in the English Channel, around the Isle of Wight. The largest, caught off Swanage, Dorset, weighed 17.7 kg and at least 4 specimens exceeded 13.6 kg (30 lb). 

Len Nevell Angling Reports
EMail

 BMLSS Report Forms

BIOMAR

Picton, B.E. and Costello M. J. (editors). 1998. BioMar biotope viewer: a guide to marine habitats, fauna and flora of Britain and Ireland. Environmental Sciences Unit, Trinity College, Dublin. ISBN 0 9526 735 4 1

Copies are available on request from:
EcoServe, 17 Rathfarnham Road, Terenure, Dublin 6W, Ireland.
Fax + 353-1-492 5694. Email mcostello@ecoserve.ie.
They cost £10 + £2 P & P (standard economy rate).

Further Information

A Review will appear in next month's Torpedo.

---

CLOCKING CRABS 

 

How can you tell the age of a crab? It may sound like the opening line of a joke but it's a problem that's been bothering Se-Jong Ju of the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Unlike many other animals, crabs don't produce any permanent hard parts which means that researchers have no accurate way to work out how old they are. We look at a reliable new method which Ju says "should work on any crustacean".

NEW SCIENTIST WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
No 19   5 February 2000
More Information

• Nudibranchs (Australia) nudibranch web site (New URL):
• http://www.diveoz.com.au

 

 
 
 
 
 

BMLSS: Marine Life Articles in Publications (Link)

 Sue Daly produces a Creature Feature every month on her web site.
 
 
 

We had originally planned to bring this service to our  members. However, as Sue is already producing this series, I have decided to devote my energies to producing other information.
 

A similar exhibition is planned for the year 2000. 
Print photographs should be sent in to Glaucus House from March 2000. They could also be used on the BMLSS web sites.

However, if you have a large selection of your own photographs, I would suggest that you should arrange your own exhibitions at a Local Library or similar venue. We will help to advertise the event. 
 
 

This is a simple project or request to members and readers of this Bulletin. It is to take pictures of the coast when you are next down on the shore. Even general views have value, but ideally we would like photographs of the shore showing the type of rock, topography and rock pools, dominant fauna, and information that cannot be described adequately by words on the Report Cards. 

The name of the particular coast should be included and the grid reference, if known. Print photographs can be included in Exhibitions and on the BMLSS Web Sites and electronic publications. Electronic images in *.JPG format can also be considered for the web site. Transparency photographs are the best choice of film. 

British Naturalists' Association

BNA Blake Shield Competition
Prizes awarded by Professor David Bellamy, the Patron of the BNA.

WARD CUP  7-11 age group

BLAKE SHIELD  11- 14 age group

The Cup and the Shield are awarded for the best projects that investigate the living world, and require a team leader, a school teacher or scout group leader, or leader of another youth group. 

HOSKING YOUTH AWARD  16-18
This award is for a personal drawing painting or a photograph accompanied by a 1000-1500 word essay on how the image was obtained.

For information about the competitions in the year 2000 please write, enclosing stamped addressed envelope, to:
BNA Blake Shield 
P.O. Box 5681 
Rushden 
NN10 8ZF
U.K.
Tel:   01933 314672

British Naturalists' Association Web Page

The British Marine Life Study Society Web Site has been included as an Encyclopaedia Britannica Recommended Site and included on the BBC On-line Internet Guide.

There are more entries on the GATEWAY pages of the BMLSS Web Site and on the Torpedo File on the web site (click on this text).
 

NEW Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions	English and European Wildlife Issues
Coastal Guide   Europe	Living Earth
Cornish Wildlife Vince Smith's One-List/Cornish Wildlife Send a message to the list at: CornishWildlife@onelist.com This is a really good forum for Cornish wildlife and  environmental discussion.	Seaquest SW  (Cornwall Wildlife Trust web pages)

These pages are not designed for the default settings on the Page Set-ups of your browser. I recommend viewing in Internet Explorer 5 and altering the right and left hand columns in the Page Set-up menu to 9 mm (from 19 mm).
The page set-up can also be amended in Netscape Composer, and this has the advantage of enabling the specified number of pages to be printed and the information about the file (name, path, date) to be deleted.

The new Premier Membership for the year 2000 also entitles the member to the Official BMLSS CD-ROM (available Spring 2000), which will contain the BMLSS web pages and more information about marine life, together with a selection of other exclusive marine life information, electronic back copies of BMLSS publications, and the full version of TORPEDO Electronic News Bulletin sent to them every month by Email, as well as the other BMLSS Electronic Information Services. The CD-ROM will also contain useful shareware and freeware programs, and should be at least as good value as a computer magazine CD-ROM for the second aspect alone.
 
 

Premier	Membership	Ordinary
New Member	£28.00	£22.00
Renewal	£25.00	£18.00

The work of the BMLSS is funded by entirely by member's subscriptions and we do not receive any grants.

Torpedo  compiled by Andy Horton2 March 2000