Trust patron Mark Carwardine has kindly done an article in Aprils edition of BBC Wildlife magazine about the plight of Seahorses; especially at Studland Bay in Dorset where he quite rightly says the simple solution to the problem is putting in Eco-moorings. By doing this it means that the boats do not anchor in the seagrass and in turn do not destory this very fragile habitat which is home to our most enigmatic species of Seahorse.
The site is under ever increasing pressure despite both British species of Seahorse being protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 2008. This protection means it is illegal to destroy the seahorses place of shelter; yet despite this protection hundreds of boats still anchor into the seagrass every day during the summer.
The seahorses were protected due to the hard work of hundreds of volunteers gathering data for the trust which we then collated and presented to the authorities. It took six years to get the protection put into place and now the hard work has started to get this protection implemented.
Many thanks to Mark and all our patrons and trustees for their hard work.
Spiny Seahorse (copyright The Seahorse Trust)
