The Seahorse Trust News

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

We now have a Membership and Adopt a Seahorse schemes which would make great presents for familly and friends.

For a minimum of £4 per months (more if you can afford it) you can adopt one of our 9 Seahorses (more to follow) and for £25 a year you can become a member of the trust.

Dont forget if you are a UK tax Payer then please gift aid your donation, we can claim 25p for every pound you donate from tax you have already paid.

Sign up to adopt a Seahorse or become a member here on the website, without you we cannot do the much needed work with Seahorses.

Thank you.

Chris Packham’s new series Truth about Wildlife is shown on BBC on the 6th of June at 7.30.

Check out the trailer for this programme that sheds light on the UK’s poor record on marine wildlife protection. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13618882

Despite The Seahorse Trust getting both British seahorses protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 2008, nothing has been done to protect them and the disturbance and destruction of their habitat is still allowed to go on.

The Seahorse Trust attended the second Marine Management Organisation’s meeting about the future of Studland Bay in Dorset on Thursday the 14th of April. It was a lively meeting at times but it looks as though Studland is going to become a Marine Protected Zone over the next 2 years due to campaiging by Seahorse Trust supporters and others.
Even the boating community is beginning to accept that the site needs protecting and we all need to work together to keep the pressure up for this to happen and for all of us to work together to ensure the future of this amazing site.
Studland is a fascinating site with seagrass, Seahorses (both species), Undulate Rays and a host of other offically protected species on but due to overuse and the destruction caused by up to 350 boats per day in the summer it is being destoyed.
Despite the legal protection the various species have it is still being destroyed and the Marine Protected Zone status will help to ensure that this site stands a chance of surviving.

ON Monday the 4th we filmed with trust patron Chris Packham for his forthcoming series on conservation here in the UK which is to be shown on BBC.

It was a long hectic day and very tiring but we hopefully got all the footage that was needed. Sadly no Seahorses on the day but Chris and his team are gogin to use stock footage taken at Studland by reknowned underwater videographer Doug Anderson.

We would like to say a big thanks to Chris and all our patrons for their incredible support of the work of the Trust from Chris’s filming to Mark Carwardines recent piece in the April issue of BBC Wildlife magazine to the current issue of Radio Times where Kate Humble nominates the Spiny Seahorse as her iconic species for the British Isles in the forthcoming series (link below)

http://www.radiotimes.com/content/competitions/win-wildlife-dvds-vote-wild-animal-british-symbol/

We have kindly been donated £5,000 by the James Gibson Charitable Trust which I would like to offer my sincere thanks for from myself and on behalf of our trustees and patrons. Without kind donations such as this we would not be able to do the work that we do in protecting and researching seahorses. If you feel you can add towards this kind donation please let us know and dont forget that from the 18th of April for a week we are E-bays charity of the week so spread the word and get everyone yo know to nominate us as their charity on Ebay.
Many thanks to all at the James Gibson Charitable Trust for their kindness.

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)