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

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." Report and comments by David Hill

BMLSS Octopuses

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.

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.  Images and Information on a Daily Mail News Report Discovering Fossils (Dover, Kent) View of the Crab Bay cliff fall, from Langdon Heights Photograph on the left by Kevin Mudge-Wood/TAT Photography

View of the cliff fall from the bottom of the cliffs
Photograph by Lee Pelling Photography

Click on the image for the report

4 March 2012
Three Risso’s Dolphins, Grampus griseus, were visible from the from road that skirts the northern shore of Catfirth, Shetland Islands. They surfaced every couple of minutes or so in the early afternoon. 
Image Gallery (Shetland Wildlife)

3 March 2012
 

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.

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

British Marine Life Study Society 
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/glaucus/

This Wall is now working properly and members can now post on it. This is designed for quick less important chatty news items. Photographs can be uploaded quickly which is only possible on the Yahoo Group by going to the web page. 

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

Wet Thumb (Marine Aquariology) Forum Link
 
 

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 BOOK
 

This is a book about an ocean that vanished six million years ago: the ocean of Tethys, named after a Greek sea nymph.  The oceans are important to climate and environment, and therefore to life on Earth. The story of Tethys is also a story of extinctions, and floods, and extraordinary episodes such as the virtual drying up of the Mediterranean, before being filled again by a dramatic cascade of water over the straits of Gibraltar. 

Dorrik Stow
300 pages, 15 b/w illustrations and maps.
Oxford University Press
ISBN-13: 9780199214297
 
 

by Paul Kay & Frances Dipper 
£19.95 incl. p&p
Soft cover

With 256 pages and numerous photographs supported by drawings, this book is the most comprehensive photographic guide to marine fish currently available in the UK. Published for the Marine Conservation Society with support from the Countryside Council for Wales. 

Click on the image to order this book through the Marine Conservation Society

RECOMMENDED PURCHASE *****

July 2010

PS: A second revised edition of the book has been published. 

SEASHORE SAFARIS
 
 
 

Publisher: Graffeg
Publisher's Review (click on this text)
Review by the City and County of Swansea

This is the book I should have written (and I dare say a few others as well) and is a much needed introduction to the world of the seashore and the hobby of rockpooling. It is a photographic guide to most of the common species encountered which is much appreciated as newcomers and even experienced rockpoolers will try and match up what they have seen to a visual image (and photographs work better than line drawings) and this will usually get them the correct species, (unless there are two very alike species and then you will need a specialist identification guide like the Collins Guide to the Seashore).

However, the seashore is a rich and interesting habitat with a myriad of species and 225 pages of this large pocket guide are comprehensively covered to suit the enthusiast.

Extract from the foreword by Keith Hiscock:
"Being able to names to what you see and, better still, to use your observations to add to our knowledge about the natural world is what this book is about."

But the book for a popular audience is more than this. It starts from the assumption that the parents and teachers and older children are unfamiliar with the seashore environment.

RECOMMENDED PURCHASE *****

Not just a cookery book: you have to go down to the shore and catch or collect the food yourself. The 240 page hardback book (with an index) is exceptionally well produced in quality of the binding, paper as well as the quality of writing, information and clear useful colour photographs. It is well organised into nine chapters:
 
 

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

 
 
 

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