Websailor's Wacky Wildlife World
Created | Updated May 7, 2008
A quirky look at wildlife. To be taken with a pinch of
salt, but with more than a grain of truth!
Are Coral Reefs Exotic? Not Always, It Seems
If you mention coral reefs, to most people they conjure up thoughts of sunny climes, sand, sea and exotic scenery. That is probably even more likely at this time of year when the weather is so gloomy and thoughts turn to holidays.
The Great Barrier Reef is sure to come top of the list, but there are many more around the world, some being tourist attractions, some not. Many of us know that untold damage is being done to these precious ecosystems by fishing, diving, and pollution and that vast areas of coral reef are dying as a result.
In glorious technicolor, seething masses of the huge array of wildlife that coral reefs support are familiar to anyone watching wildlife films. Not so familiar are the coral reefs around the British Isles.
The coasts of Devon, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire, and Northumberland have coral reefs. Scotland and the coast along the Channel as far as West Sussex and the Channel Islands all have coral. In Britain's cooler waters the coral is often deeper and less easy to see, except by divers. We are blessed with about 12 different species of coral of mainly three types - hard and soft corals, and sea fans. There are seven British species of hard coral, three species of soft coral, and two of sea fans.
Trawlers dragging huge nets to catch deep-sea-fish often demolish vast areas of coral on the seabed. In other
areas scallop dredging takes place, the massive, heavy equipment scraping the bottom of the seabed and destroying all before it, leaving the seabed looking worse than a moonscape instead of a vibrant, living habitat.
The scallop 'catch' is minimal in comparison with the amount of dead and damaged marine life that is thrown back into the sea. Coral which has provided such precious habitat for fish and marine animals, taking thousands of years to form, is reduced to dust within hours.
I have to say, the sight of a scallop swimming sends me into fits of laughter, but that is neither here nor there - it is not their fault that they look like a pair of false teeth swimming! We cannot keep taking from the sea and only putting back the leftovers. It is such a wicked waste quite apart from anything else.
One area in particular was brought to my attention by a friend. Beautiful Lyme Bay in Dorset, home to one of our protected sea fans, the Pink or White sea fan Eunicella verrucosa, is in danger of being wiped out by scallop dredging. Fully matured colonies may be over forty years old! It is protected under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red list of threatened species.
However that does not seem to make much difference in Lyme Bay, where the nationally rare sunset cup coral
Leptopsammia pruvoti is also at risk. Diving, potting and sea angling all take place in the Bay, all relying on a healthy reef structure, but it is the scallop dredging which is causing great concern.
The Wildlife Trusts are calling on DEFRA to give statutory protection to the whole of the Lyme Bay Reefs, a mere 60 square miles and just 10% of Lyme Bay. Protection is urgently needed to give the seabed and marine life time to recover. It is also important for local communities to have sustainable fishing and a consistent commercial tourism industry.
You can learn more about Lyme Bay, sea fans and the horrors of scallop dredging at their website
but promise not to laugh at the scallop swimming!
What we buy and what we eat can have a huge influence on issues such as this, and the massive surge of interest in different foods, along with the current advice to eat more fish/seafood isn't helping. If we wish to continue with the varied and exciting diets we now enjoy, we must exert some self-control and put pressure on the Government to protect such valuable resources for future generations.
The risks to other wildlife may not be clear yet, but do we really want to be surrounded by a dead sea, because that could happen unless we do something? I have great sympathy for our fishermen and the hard work they put in, but others seem bent on wiping out everything.
If it makes exotic foods more expensive then so be it. Much else could go the way of cod and plaice. We shall have to go back to the days when food was rationed, and exotic stuff was a treat to be enjoyed on special occasions. Better that, than to lose both food supply and wildlife habitat in one fell swoop.
Websailor's Wacky Wildlife
World Archive
