The Seahorse Trust attended the second Weymouth Sealife Centre Conservation Evening last night and it was a great success with stands from a number of conservation organisations like the RSPB and the Shark Trust and Sealife’s own environmental charity The Sealife Trust. It was a great evening attended by a very enthusiastic crowd and we would like to say a massive thank you for all the team in Weymouth for putting this event on and looking forward to next year already.
Fisherman Peter Guille had the surprise of his life a week ago when he pulled a Pollack out of the water off the Channel Island of Sark. When he lifted the Pollack from the water he saw a Seahorse hanging from its mouth which in itself was amazing but imagine his surpise when he gutted the Pollack to find 55 others in its belly including 4 that were still alive. Peter put the live seahorse back into the sea and the rest into a bucket and on returning to shore he contacted local widlife filmaker (and seahorse sightings coordinator for the trust in the Channel Islands) Sue Daly and she went to investigate and take some pictures. When Sue got there she found that 4 were still alive and donning her SCUBA gear she packed up the live seahorses and took them back under the water to release them, which she did in the local Harbour. After spending some time with the seahorses Sue happily left them to their own devices and hopefully they survived their ordeal inside the Pollack, bit like Jonah and the whale.
What is more amazing is that these small Short Snouted Seahorses (all juveniles about 3 to 4 cm long) were almost all female.
This remarkable incident is even more strange because of how difficult seahorses are to find in the wild due to their cryptic nature. In the past we have only had a couple of occurences of mass findings like this but all the previous ones have been seagulls eating seahorses.
Perhaps we should train Pollack to find seahorses for us when we are doing our survey work!!
The pictures below (copyright Sue Daly 2014) show the ones that sadly did not survive and the ones that did and Peter the fisherman who had the quick thought to put them back in the wild and contact Sue. Many thanks to both of them for all of this
Right now, the US government is receiving public comments on whether or not to create the world’s largest Marine Protected Area in the Pacific Ocean. But President Obama is under enormous pressure from a powerful fishing lobby to water down the plan.
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Dear all excitingly we are updating our website at the moment and hope to have a shop attached to it by the end of the year, which will be great for all those people that want seahorses memorabilia. We already have one or two items of one off jewellary and art works that have been donated to help raises funds for us.
PLease also check out our Facebook page where you can find lots of exciting things happening in the seahorse world.https://www.facebook.com/groups/106564446031865/
Aklexandra Andersson, has written a sobering article for Time Magazine at the link below
(please copy and paste)
http://time.com/2999513/conservation-seahorses-dugongs-freshwater-slow-lorises-turtles-tortoises-sun-bears/
In the article, Alex has listed 5 species (the very tip of the iceberg) that are disappearing rapidly despite legal protection. Ou planet is reliant on the balance of our eco-systems if we allow this constant erosion of the web of life to continue then eventually it will collapse. We are already witnessing food shortages, water pollution, and habitat loss and what is left is a carefully manicured, artificial environment. Sadly there will come a time when this builds to such a level that a worldwide problem occurs. We have time to stop it but we have to act now before it is too late.
Thank you so much to Sam at OS Aquatics in Wool Dorset who has kindly nominated us as his charity to raise funds for. our work In his annual tidy up of his bedroom, Sam found lots of things to sell and has set up a stall outside of OS Aquatics and within just a few days he has raised £44 towards the work of The Seahorse Trust. We think he is amazing and is certainly a Seahorse Champion. Thanks Sam.
Please have a look at this video on you Tube which was filmed by Ross Birnie and Will Goldenburg of the annual seahorse swim on Studland Beach. Thank you so much to everyone involved and especially to Ross and will for putting the film together.
We had an amazing time on Sunday the 22nd of June at the Seahorse Swim at Studland Beach organised and run by Bob Holman and his amazing team of volunteers and swimmers. The event has been running for several years now and has grown from 50 swimmers in its first year to 230 this year and once again EDOWSC kindly supported the work of The Seahorse Trust by inviting us along and making a very generous donation of £300 towards our work at Studland.
Trust Director Neil started the race and set the swimmers on their way and at the end of the long gruelling course he presented some of the prizes.
It was a very hot sunny day and everyone who took part enjoyed themselves and the team of volunteers who ran the race did a fantastic job of making sure everyone was safe and well looked after.
It was so fantastic to see The Seahorse Trusts logo on the back of everyone’s t-shirts and our own team of volunteers answered many questions about the work at Studland.
Filming the race were Ross and Will who are doing a degree at Bristol University linked with the Natural history Unit; they were flying their quad copter over the swimmers to get a seagull’s eye view of the events and we hope to have a link to the footage online soon.
On behalf of The Seahorse Trust our trustees, patrons, members and supporters I would like to thank Bob and his incredible team for a very enjoyable day and if you want to learn more and maybe do a sponsored swim for The Seahorse Trust please have a look at their website and Facebook www.edowsc.org/ed/  and  www.facebook.com/eastdorsetopenwater
There are more pictures on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/106564446031865/
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to Louise Horvath and her amazing team of students on the animal care course (level 1) for raising £475 for the trust from their 8 miles sponsored walk and cake sale (held in the reception. They are the animal carers of the future and have kindly taken time out to raise money for our work, especially the work with the British Seahorses. Thank you so much for one and all for your hard work from everyone here at the trust, your all superstars.
Here at the trust we are very lucky to have a great team of trustees who oversee the work of the trust and one of them is Doctor David Gibson the CEO of the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Dave, his staff and their visitors have regularly raised funds for our work through the collection spinner, situated near the British Seahorses in the aquarium. Over the last few years they have raised several thousand pounds from donations, including a cheque this morning for the last month of £301.69. Thank you to everyone at the aquarium, visitors and staff alike for your amazing support.
The Seahorse Trust was set up in 1999 as an umbrella organisation to preserve and conserve the natural world, especially the marine environment using Seahorses as our flagship species. We work in partnership through a Seahorse Alliance with many organisations and people from all over the world and it is this unique partnership that allows us to achieve so much in the conservation of seahorses and their environment for the future.
© 2024 The Seahorse Trust.
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