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In our research work at Studland Bay in Dorset, here in England, we use small tags made by Floy Tags based in Seattle, Washington in America, so that we can identify our individual seahorses. These tags are each inidvidually numbered and this has allowed us to make so many discoveries about these amazing fish, especially about their movements, throughout the year and who they pair with.

Floy Tags have now made a very kind donation to our work, by supplying us with 300 individually numbered tags, so that we can continue with this work. We will be using the tags mainly on our site at Studland and in our forthcoming project in Malta, where trust volunteers Beccy and Jonny are setting up a similar project where eco-tourist volunteers will have the opportunity to take part in this unusal project. Check out our Malta project page under research for updates.

We would like to thank Floy Tags so much for their kind donation. http://www.floytag.com/

As you can see in the picture below the tags help us in identifying seahorses; we have done a great deal of research over the years and we know that these tags do not affect the seahorses. When we are not reading the tags they sit under the neck of the seahorses and cannot be seen.

Pentax UK has kindly donated a WG-O1 camera with built in gps and underwater facilties for our research work. This amazing camera can go down to 10 metres and takes pictures in, low light levels, ideal for taking pictures of seahorses without a flash; which was banned following recommenadtions by The Seahorse Trust in 2010.

Photographs are vital to our work, so that we can identify individuals and the habitat they live in and the WG-O1 will be a superb tool to allow us to understand more about the secretive lives of Seahorses.

As we go into the next season of research dives we will post pictures of seahorses taken with this camera in our reports and on the website.

Thank you so much to Pentax for this kind donation.

http://www.pentax.co.uk/

GAC Logistics is the largest independant global, shipping, logistics and marine company in the world and have kindly made a donation for the research work at Studland Bay.

GAC are responsible for helping to ship captive bred seahorses and other fish species around the world to the different research and captive breeding projects that are looking into saving the marine species of the world. Without this care and attention we could not do so much work to understand the needs of fragile species.

As well as their conservation logistics they also have a dedicated team for humanitarian aid, which supports the work of the United Nations World Food Programme bringing aid where ever it is needed throughout the world. This huge company spans the world and through its humanitarian and conservation work is making a huge difference to the human and environmental world.

GAC want to develop long term links with the trust and we hope to develop relations with them much further as time and our projects develop.

We would like to offer our thanks to GAC and particularly Peter Smith Fish Manager from London GAC for this kind donation which will directly help the work at Studland.

www.gac.com

We would like to invite you to support our colleagues at the World Conservation and Wildlife Trust in their chairty dinner which is to be held at the Gem Restaurant in Islington in London on Thursday the 28th of June at 8pm.

The dinner will be in aid of the WCWT’s oceanic conservation campaign which supports vital conservation for the worlds marine life.

It is a minimum donation of £30 and the evening will include delicious food prepared by the Turkish cooks at the Gem restaurant, live music and a charity auction.

For more details contact Robin Johnson (founder and director of WCWT on 07403116332 or on robin@wcwtinternational.org

Dear all, we could do with your help please.

Like a lot of small charities we are being squeezed by the economic situation. In 2012 we have lots of work and projects planned such as continuing our work at Studland, a new seahorse survey for Torbay and our project with Beccy and Jonny in Malta (check out the Malta page under Research), plus many others and we can only do this with help. So if your planning any fund raising events, want to make a donation to our work and can spread the word and can get more people to join our facebook group or become members of the trust or adopt one of the seahorses then we need help.

We need more corporate sponsors so if you know of any companies that would like to make a donation to the work please let them know about us. It costs £45,000 to run the trust each year and if we had more we could do so much more (there is so much to do), so if we could find 45 businesses that could donate £1,000 per annum or 90 that could donate £500 that would cover our basic work and remember that there are tax benefits for donatng to charities as businesses or individuals.

Lets make 2012 a year to remember in seahorse terms, without all of you we could not have done so much to protect these amazing creatures so pester your local businesses and get them to donate now.

The trust is very lucky to have such a fantastic team of volunteers setting up and doing projects and fund raising events, we could not do what we do without them, so a massive thank you to one and all.

Thank you. Neil (Director)

Have a brilliant Christmas and a very good prosperous New Year and thank you from all here at The Seahorse Trust.

Don’t forget if you are  planning any fund raising events or just want to make a donation to our work, drop us a line and let us know, we can help to publicise your event here on the site or on our Facebook page. The more we can raise the more we can do for these incredible amazing creatures and the fragile habitat they live in, they are in severe danger in the wild and we need to do something now, not in the future when it is too late.

There are lots of ways to make donations or to get your supporters to make a donation to us, so check out the website and see how you can make a big difference. Click on any of the links at the bottom of each page to make an electronic donation such as by Virgin Giving or The Big Give or if you are an e-bayer you can choose us as your nominated charity.

Thank you

Happy Christmas

Neil

Trust Director

Trust volunteer Beccy has created some beautiful mouse mats with a picture of one of our study seahorses from Studland on it. The picture was taken by Beccy and her partner Jonny and shows just how stunning the seahorses are around our coastline.

If you want to buy a mouse mat they are £9.99 plus £1.49p&p. Of this £4.99 goes directly to support The Seahorse Trust.
Please contact Beccy direct on rmac4521@aol.com

Don’t forget Beccy and Jonny are setting up the research project in Malta and if you are interested in taking part then contact them on seahorseproject@aol.co.uk This amazing project will allow us working in partnership with a number of organisations in Malta to understand more about Seahorses in Malta and we can then compare the data we gather with the information we have gathered here in the UK as we have the same species as Malta does.

We have to say a massive thank you to the staff and pupils of Salisbury Cathedral School for all their hard work in raising a massive £86 for The Seahorse Trust through their Christmas Fair.

Teacher Gillian Bathe has been working with the children for months now teaching them dance and art inspired by the movement of Seahorses in the wild.

The Seahorse Trust sent Gillain and the pupils a video made by graduate Joanna Whiting (who got a first for the documentary) of Bournemouth University. In the video, it shows the work of the trust at Studland in Dorset and shows footage taken by underwater videographer Doug Anderson showing seahorses swimming and living at Studland.

The pupils have used this footage to learn dance and explore art and some of the things they made were sold at the Christmas Fair.

Many thanks to one and all for all their hard work.

Not quite to do with seahorses but have a look at this website about a new series of films to do with the underwater world. It combines fantasy with the marine world and is an exciting project with its head office in Torquay, Devon.