On Friday the second of September a second Spiny Seahorse fry was found by fishermen 4 miles out from East Preston in West Sussex.
Graham Andrews and long term friend Tim who owns the fishing boat Charlie Girl got the surprise of their fishing life’s when they reeled their lines in to clear snagged Thong weed and found a 5cm long Spiny Seahorse curled up tightly on the weight at the end of their line. The diminutive Seahorse; the second only fry found in England seemed a little shocked by its ordeal but fisherman Graham had the presence of mind to take a number of pictures and then return the baby seahorse back into the water, who would have drifted back down to the depths to hide amongst the weed again, hoping not to be found.
Trust experts think that the tiny baby; known as a fry was a female, although at her age which would be about 8 weeks she is not sexually mature which happens at about 6 months.
Graham contacted The Seahorse Trust who run the British Seahorse Survey and reported his amazing find so it could be added to the National Seahorse Database run by the trust.
Without fishermen, divers and others submitting sightings to the database the trust would not be able to protect seahorses in the wild here in England and Wales. By volunteers and others submitting their sightings The Seahorse Trust had both British Seahorses added to the Wildlife and Countryside Act where they have the same protection as Otters, great crested Newts and water Voles.
Here at the trust we are grateful to Graham, Tim and others who have helped us to make such a difference.

We have been recently featured on the BBC programme “Autum Watch”. Programmes like this really lift the profile of the Seahorse Trust and it also gives us a real opportunity to be involved with many other marine biologists and conservationists like Nick Baker, Kate Humble and Simon King. Their knowledge is inspirational and they have the ability to get their message into millions of homes which can help highlight conservation groups in the UK like us.

Karen Carruthers has set up a fantastic new design company called Blue Seahorse. Karen has been inspired by these fantastic creatures for many years and decided to name her new company after them.

She has a superb Blue Seahorse Logo based on the Spiny Seahorse found here in the UK and particularly at our study site in Studland in Dorset.

For any design needs check out Karens website which will be up and running in 2 weeks

http://www.blue-seahorse.com/

The Isle of Purbeck Aquarium in Wool in Dorset run by Tim and Barbara have kindly sent the trust a donation of £70 collected from their visitors and customers.

They have a small dedicated room showing various fish species from the region and also have a tank of captive bred Seahorses to educate the public about these amazing creatures. You can also see tanks of fish fry where Tim and Barb are doing a series of captive breeding projects.

Tim and Barbara have been very supportive and are great friends of the trust and it’s work for many years and we would like to thank them for their continued support of our work.

http://www.osaquatics.co.uk/

East Dorset Open Water Swimming Club held its second annual Seahorse Challenge Open Water Swimming Race at Knowle Beach, Studland, Dorset on Sunday 26th. June. This annual event held under British Long Distance Swimming Association rules and over a 3.8kms course is called the Seahorse Challenge race after the breeding colony which exists in the area. The club is very keen to encourage the study and preservation of this magnificent creature and to support the activities of the Seahorse Trust.

This year’s race provided challenging weather conditions for both swimmers and organisers as the beach and sea was shrouded in fog with visibility no more than 200 metres at times. However with a revised course, a very successful swim took place with 120 swimmers from all over the country taking part.

The winners of each race category (men’s wetsuit and non-wetsuit, ladies wetsuit and non-wetsuit) received a magnificent watercolour of a seahorse painted by renowned local artist Heather Brown.

The club is grateful to the RLSS Poole and RLSS Bransksome Lifeguards, the National Trust, St John’s Ambulance and to all its volunteers for their support as without their commitment the event could not have taken place.

Bob Holman
Chairman: East Dorset Open Water Swimming Club
The Seahorse Trust is hugely grateful to Bob and the club for raising £150 towards our work at Studland; with their and others kind donations we can go on working towards the protection of the site and the most important colony of Spiny Seahorses here in the UK if not the whole of Eurpoe.

Its with sadness we have to say goodbye to our original volunteer Steve at the Seahorse Tagging Project at Studland. Without Steve this project would not have happened and he has worked hard over the last few years in spotting Seahorses and helping us with the tagging work.

Steve is well known for his marine and terrestrial conservation work and was very instrumental in getting Lyme Bay made into a protected area. His photography is well known and he has kindly lent The Seahorse Trust a number of images in the past.

Steve has decided to go a different route in his conservation work and we wish him all the best for the future and should he wish to come back we would appreciate his ‘eagle’ eye in spotting Seahorses.

Steve holding a Seahorse prior to its profile picture being taken.

During one of our dives last Saturday (24/7/2010) we spotted two new seahorses a male and a female and excitingly it was the first seahorses that our volunteer Beccy has seen on the site. Beccy is being trained to be part of our survey tagging team and you can see from the pictures as the Seahorse is being measured and having its profile picture being taken for the database.

Beccy holding the seahorse to have its profile taken for the database.

The female Spiny Seahorse being measured, this just takes seconds and does not cause the Seahorse any stress at all. The spines on younger Seahorses tend to be longer and they ‘wear’ as the seahorse gets older.

The Seahorses profile which is used to help identify individual Seahorses that are too small to tag. Each Seahorses has a unique set of spines and by taking a profile picture we can keep a record in our database. As can be seen from the picture the spines branch which led to the original name of Many Bracnched Seahorse.

All pictures on this site are subject to copryright of The Seahorse Trust 2010