Marc Roberts and his friends are putting on a concert for The Seahorse Trust in April, please support this amazing gig, thank you.
Plaese support our petition to persuade DEFRA to reverse their decision not to include Studland bay into the Marine Conservation Zone process.
Since the petition started we have attracted over 50,000 signatures and now the Wildlife trusts have offered to Tweet it out to their 600,000 members.
You can sign the petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/208/992/778/reverse-the-decision-on-the-studland-bay-mcz/
Or you can access it through our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/106564446031865/
There has never been a time more urgent in the conservation of Studland Bay; yet another year has gone by and the seahorses have all but disappeared and now the tragic news by the government that the site has been dropped from this tranche of the Marine Conservation Zone process. We have to fight and get this decision reversed and we will do everything in our power to get this done, so please support us through GoFundMe and please sign our petition on our Facebook page. Thank you on behalf of the seahorses who only have us as their voice.
Studland Bay in Dorset is the most important sites for Spiny Seahorses in the UK and yet it has been dropped from the Marine Conservation Zone process for the second time, depsite the seahorses being threatened on the site and their numbers dropping from 40 in 2008 to 1 in 2014. Even though they are legally protected !!
The Spiny Seahorses at Studland are under threat from the loss of their home, the seagrass bed because of unmanaged yachts and boats dropping anchors on the site destroying the seagrass and because of illegal moorings being put into the seagrass. The very seagrass that is home not only to the Spiny Seahorses but also a myriad of other rare and endangered species. It also helps to defend the beach and clifss by diffusing wave action, something that will cost the council millions to do if it were not there. The beach is already losing its sands and the cliffs had a number of rock falls last winter.
We have aksed for Environmentally friendly Moorings to be installed so the boats can still visit the area and the seagrass will be protected but DEFRA has dropped the formation of the MCZ because a small handful of yacht owners made an objection, even though they have no scientific evidnce to support their views, depsite the fact the seahorses (and the seagrass because of the seahorses) are legally protected. We want to raise £5,000 to fight this unjust decision and to get the bay back onto the proposed Marine Conservation Zone list. Please donate to the cause so we can lobby government and all the relevant authorities. This urgent we do not have long to achieve this, so please dig deep to help us to help them. Thank you
After pressure from a very small handful of yacht owners, DEFRA has capitulated and dropped Studland Bay from becoming a Marine Conservation Zone in this tranche of the process. This could not come at the worst time when the seahorses have dropped from 40 animals in 2008 to 1 in 2014 and the seagrass is fragmenting to a point where the sand on the beach is disappearing and the cliffs are starting to crumble.
Seagrass is natures defense against this type of erosion and as the seagrass deteriorates it will mean the council and government will have to spend tens of millions of pounds to build ugly sea defenses, ruining this area of beauty and why? because a small handful of yacht owners might have to pay to moor up to environmentally friendly moorings rather than drop their anchors into the seagrass and rip it apart. These sea defenses would not be needed if the seagrass which is natures natural defense system is protected and allowed to do its job for free.
These few yacht vocal owners, unlike the vast majority of responsible yacht owners, do not care about the environment and base their arguments on spurious claims which have no basis in science and yet The Seahorse Trust and Southampton Universities National Oceanography Centre have studied this site for years and through peer-reviewed research have proven that the site is degrading and the seahorses have disappeared
Where has all the sand gone. This picture was taken this winter only a few weeks ago by Kim Maidment and it shows the black line on the gabions where the sand used to be but it is now gione and bits of the surrounding cliff are dropping as they did last winter and why, because the seagrass is fragmenting and there is nothing to diffuse wave action to stop this from happening.
Please sign the petition below to get DEFRA to reverse the decision and to ask them not to put shaky economic arguments in front of their legally binding obligation to protect the seahorses and the seagrass.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/208/992/778/reverse-the-decision-on-the-studland-bay-mcz/#sign
We have just had another success with E-bay, one of our supporters reported in a rare live seahorse for sale on E-bay, which somehow got through the E-bay filter system and so we set Agent K on to the job. Agent K is head of our Illegal trade team (affectionately known as Agent K because we need to protect her identity) and she is brilliant and keeps on top of E-bay (Poor E-bay). After reporting the sale to E-bay , the team in charge of illegal sales at E-bay reacted very quickly and removed it. They also sent correspondence to the seller educating them about selling protected species on the site. Thank you so much to E-bay for reacting so quickly and thank you to Agent K for getting on the case and importantly thank you to our supporter who kindly reported the sale in to us. It is only by all of us working together that we can keep the lid on this trade and protect seahorses for the future
A massive thank you to Kimberly and all the volunteers in Bognor this weekend who did a beach clean and raised money for The Seahorse Trust at the same time.
As can be seen from the pictures below a lot of rubbish was removed and some great beach art was produced at the same time.
Thank you, everyone, who took part.
Dear all, please use Everyclick to search the Internet and help us generate funds. Every time you use Everyclick, if we are the nominated charity then we receive a penny. This might not sound much but we generated £200 in December with your help. If everyone used it this could be so much more.
It is easy to do, go the Everyclick page, register with them and nominate us as the charity you are supporting and then every time you do a search through Everyclick we benefit from it.
Make Every click your nominated search engine and this directly helps.
The more we can generate the more we can do.
Thank you so much and please go to the Every click link below to get started.
What a very lucky seahorse. Ali Newman and his Dad were walking along the beach at Tenby in wales on the last day of 2014 when they came across this very lucky seahorse washed up on the beach. With quick reactions Ali took a number of pictures of the juvenile female Spiny Seahorse and noticing she was still very much alive, he released her back into the sea, watching her swim off into the waves. Only Alis quick action saved this little seahorse and we are really grateful to him, saving the seahorse and then sending us all the information, so it can be recorded on the National Seahorse Database. Seahorses are found all around wales but it is not very often we get one washed up onto the beach. Cheers Ali for your quick thinking and saving the seahorse.
If you often buy and/or sell on eBay, then why not spend five minutes checking out any real seahorse(s) for sale and reporting them? It takes about three minutes to report any illegal sales you may see, and REALLY helps The Seahorse Trust in its work! (and please use the donate button and select The Seahorse Trust for us when you trade on E-bay, it all helps to keep the work going)
As you know, we have an ‘insider’ (affectionately known as Agent K) who regularly checks and then reports eBay ads, but even she is infallible and sometimes things like work, home or horses (her other passion!) prevent her from checking as often as she’d like. This is where YOU come in!
Just search on ‘seahorse’, ‘seahorse keyrings’, ‘seahorse lucite’ and ‘seahorse paperweight’ to see if you can spot any listings of real seahorses being sold within the UK or from abroad – but deliverable to the UK and Europe. Even while other countries still sadly allow the sales of seahorses within their own country, it is still ILLEGAL to sell them to buyers within Europe.
The ‘Report item’ button is on the right-hand side before the main text of the advertisement (to the right of the Postage tab). Just click on this, then on the ‘Prohibited and restricted items‘ category, then ‘Animals, plants and wildlife‘ for the report reason, and finally ‘Animals, animal parts, pelts or skins’ for the detailed reason. Click on Continue and then click on ‘Send report‘. All done, thank you!
If eBay gets a few duplicate notifications of illegal advertisements, then they may decide to tighten up on their filters that are supposed to prevent such ads appearing in the first place.
You also have the opportunity to give feedback at the bottom of any sales listing pages, so we’d urge you to politely point out that it is illegal for any real seahorse sales to be advertised on the UK version of eBay.
During 2014 alone, 100 illegal UK seahorse sale advertisements have been reported to eBay, with a further 92 being reported from foreign sellers trying to sell within Europe.
In the much shorter period of 20/9/13 to 31/12/13, a total of 148 ads were reported, so we ARE making a difference by informing eBay, who then withdraw the ad and therefore put off other would be sellers too!
Thank you for any help you are able to give then report sightings (on E-bay and elsewhere to Agent K on illegaltrade@localhost
Best wishes ‘Agent K’
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