Reports of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents and conservation initiatives as they affect the flora and fauna of the NE Atlantic Ocean
 

19 August 2009
Green seaweed has been clogging parts of the English coastline, and from the air above Langstone Harbour in Hampshire it resembles a massive algal green carpet. This amount of seaweed has a detrimental effect on the underlying fauna deoxygenating the mud and killing the worms and cockles etc.
BBC News Report

The continual problem also occurred off the shores of Brittany.
BBC News Report

12 - 14 August 2009
Thousands of fish have died of suffocation in the seas of St. Austell Bay in south Cornwall. 
"The more we looked, the more dead fish we found, mainly small ones, but eventually even about half a dozen Cuckoo Wrasse, Labrus bimaculatus, - a beautiful red and blue fish, and some others which someone identified as baby Dogfish, Scyliorhinus canicula, all unmarked but dead in rock pools or on the shoreline. One chap even hauled out a large Conger Eel, Conger conger, from a pool, obviously dead."
The dead fish coincided with a large bloom of plankton that had been blown into the bay. The bloom had turned the water brown and left sludge deposit on the shore. The exact species has not yet been identified. 
Western Morning News Report
Wild About Britain Forum (Report)
BBC News Report (1)
BBC News Report (2)

"The Status of Rockpools at Spit Point, Par, Cornwall.
I had a very sad afternoon, although the afternoon began very promising despite what had been forecast on the news. On venturing onto the beach at Spit Point there were no obvious signs of washed up fish or anything and the first upper shore rockpools I checked were teaming with small fry and other life, however this didn't last long and it wasn't long before I started to find dead gobies.
On looking in upper-middleshore pools things got a lot worse and Green Sea-Urchins, Psammechinus miliaris, were laying on the bottom of pools somewhat lifeless (usually they are all under rocks), along with various species of marine worms. 

Dead Sandeels and Two-spotted Gobies were common place and I also came across a dead 3 lb Ballan Wrasse in the large upper shore pools. Towards Par Dock Breakwater the upper shore was stinking of hydrogen sulphide and especially where small mussel colonies ventured into some of the smaller pools. Here there was also a film and foam on the pools. On venturing back I took images of near lifeless Snakelocks Anemones, dead crabs and images of the colour of the water at low water mark, which was quite dark and murky.

The status of Par Beach, Cornwall.
I decided to visit Par Beach after Spit Point and to see what was happening there. The first thing I saw was thousands of Sea Potatoes washed together just below the high water mark. Dead Sea Potatoes were common place all down the beach. I then noticed that there was an increase in the amount of Common Cockles on the surface of the sand. Then came a real shock, thousands of half-dead and dead lugworm all across the beach, many had been speared by beaks of seabirds, thousands must have already been eaten.
A yellowish-brown scum could be found all over the beach in lines below the high tide mark down to low water."

10 August 2009
A 15 cm juvenile Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, was rescued after stranding on on Loe Bar, near Porthleven, in Cornwall. It was discovered by by Rose Ledbury from Warwick. The turtle was surrounded by a number of stranded Portuguese Man-o'War, Physalia physalis, one of the Loggerhead's staple foods. The turtle is recovering in a special quarantine unit at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay. 

2 August 2009
A Bogue, Boops boops, was caught in a Red Mullet net in 10 metres of water about half a mile off the shore at Seaton, south east Cornwall, by Chris Dominic on the FV Emma May.

This fish was about 17 cm (6 - 7"), but they can grow to 38 cm (14").  They are a shoaling fish and are a commercial species in southern Europe. They are classified in the Sparidae Sea Bream family and I assume they are good eating.  They are rare in British waters and most have been caught in the Channel Islands, but they have also been found in Torbay and several other places. They are regularly caught in Red Mullet nets in Mount's Bay Cornwall in the autumn, but this is the first I had heard of from Whitsand Bay.
 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FORUM NEWS

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Mailing Groups

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean 
Yahoo Group
New Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Glaucus

With the closure of Smart Groups at the end of November 2006 most of the 7500+ messages have been filed at:

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Jiglu
http://www.Jiglu.com/spaces/glaucus/

Images can be uploaded to flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/glaucus/
 

Wet Thumb (Marine Aquariology) Forum Link
 
 

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. They should not exceed 250K in size.

Photographers submitting pictures should indicate if they wish them to be considered for inclusion as confirming permission takes work and time and can delay publication of the news bulletins. 
 

Click on the album for more links (On-line link)

NEW BOOKS:

Two new interesting publications were received this month:
 

VIVARIUM
by Peter Stiles
Publisher: Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon

Philip Henry Gosse was a popular naturalist who moved to Victorian Ilfracombe and wrote his natural science book ‘A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast’. He later designed the first public aquarium, which opened in London. His activities also attracted other naturalists, including Charles Darwin and novelist George Eliot.

This book celebrates the link between Philip Henry Gosse and his rockpool adventures in Devon and contains lots of information about the life of this self-taught Victorian scientist and writer.

in conjunction with an Exhibition that finished on 25 April 2009.
 

Marine Fisheries Science Yearbook  2008/2009

Publisher:  defra

href="http://archive.defra.gov.uk/search/results.htm?cx=014361324438485032053%3Aljunwq2pe_y&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=Marine+Fisheries+Science+">To obtain a copy from the defra web site, click on this text
 
 
 

Sharks in British Seas Richard Peirce 138 pages, colour illustrations, line drawings, colour & b/w photos. Lots of newspaper reports. Publisher:  Shark Cornwall Softcover | 2008 | £9.99 ISBN: 978-0-955869402

Seashore by Lucy Beckett-Bowman Consultant: Andy Horton Usborne Publishing   £3.99 Usborne Beginners Series Level One (very young children) ISBN 978-0-7460-8864-7 BMLSS Notes for a Primary School Teacher

Whales & Dolphins 
of the European Atlantic
The Bay of Biscay, English Channel, Celtic Sea and coastal SW Ireland
by Dylan Walker and Graeme Cresswell
with the illustrations by Robert Still
WILDGuides  2008
£ 12.00 (includes standard UK P&P)
ISBN:  978-1-903657-31-7

This is the second fully revised and updated edition of this comprehensive guide to the identification of whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) in the European Atlantic. Until very recently, most researchers and whale-watchers were unaware of the great variety of cetaceans that can be seen so close to the shores of western Europe. Indeed, it is only during the last decade, when detailed cetacean surveys have been carried out in earnest, that we have discovered how important this area is for cetacean biodiversity.

This field guide describes all of the 31 species of whale, dolphin and porpoise that have occurred in the European Atlantic. 
 

BMLSS Cetacean Book Reviews

 
The Gulf Stream
by Bruno Voituriez
Publisher:  UNESCO 
ISBN:  92-3-103995-4 
222 pages, figures, glossary, bibliography

The Gulf Stream
Amid contemporary scenarios of potential climatic catastrophes and global warming that might be imagined to bring a new ice age, the powerful image of the Gulf Stream rising from the Florida Straits and flowing to the north Atlantic inevitably provokes questions about its ecological significance and whether it might ever stop.
 

Coastal Plankton
Photo Guide for European Seas

by Otto Larink & Wilfried Westheide
reviewed by Wim van Egmond
 
 

Seashore (Collins New Naturalist) (Paperback) by Peter Hayward Collins 2004 ISBN:  0-00-220031-7 Amazon Web Site

Paperback. Pp 288. Colour & b/w photographs, illustrations, charts, maps and bibliography. Fine copy. "New Naturalist" Seashore is a comprehensive, authoritative account of the natural history of the seashore.
 

BMLSS General Guides
BMLSS Advanced Guides