Reports of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents and conservation initiatives as they affect the flora and fauna of the NE Atlantic Ocean.
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26 February 2008
The Angel Shark, Squatina squatina, Short-snouted Seahorses, Hippocampus hippocampus, and Spiny Seahorse, Hippocampus guttulatus (=H. ramulosus), will gain protection against being killed, injured, or taken from the wild from 6 April 2008 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. 
In addition, the possession or selling of the the Short-snouted and Spiny Seahorses’ will become an offence. It will also become an offence to damage or obstruct the Short-snouted and Spiny Seahorses’ place of shelter or disturb them in their place of shelter.

23 February 2008
Two Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaengliae, were seen from the French coast off Le Portel near Boulogne-sur-Mer at the eastern end of the English Channel. 

18 February 2008
A 6.2 metre long baby Fin Whale, Balaenoptera physalis, was discovered washed up dead on a beach on the Lizard, south Cornwall. Local resident Derek Chapman had watched the whale swimming back and fore just off the beach at Porthallow the day before it stranded. He was very concerned to see it come in so close to the shore and realised that this was unusual. He later found it dead among the rocks.
Fin Whales are the second largest animal on earth and only eight stranded animals have been recorded in Cornwall, the first in 1781.

15-22 February 2008
A Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, seen swimming in the northern Irish Sea off Portaferry, Northern Ireland at the first date was eventually washed up dead. It weighed over 200 kg.

3 February 2008
A dead juvenile Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, beached alive at Putsborough on the north Devon coast. It was rescued from the cold British seas and transferred to the Blue Reef Aquarium at Newquay, Cornwall. To the amazement of the discoverers Diana and Pauline Bussell, a little blue crab crawled out from underneath the dinner plate-sized shell of the turtle. This turned out to the alien hitch-hiker known as the Columbus Crab, Planes minutus, which occasionally gets washed up on the shore with floating driftwood and other pelagic debris.

31 January 2008
A male Striped Dolphin, Stenella coeruleoalba, a relatively uncommon sight in inshore Cornish waters, was stranded alive on an ebbing tide on the south coast at Church Cove, Gunwalloe, near Helston. The dolphin was lying on the beach not far from the surf.  At first sight, it looked relatively unscathed but it was later found to have a bad injury and was euthanased. This was only the 14th Cornish stranding record for this species of dolphin and only the second one stranded alive.

28 January 2008 
Guernsey commercial fisherman Rick Ferbrache brought me a Red Sea Bream (=Blackspot Sea Bream), Pagellus bogaraveo, caught off Portinfer Bay on the north-west coast of Guernsey.  It weighed 454 grams and was 32.6 cm long (total length).

Red Sea Bream were common in Guernsey waters until 1984 and then they disappeared.  During the last year or so they have been making a comeback to Guernsey waters.

BMLSS Sea Breams
 

24 January 2008

I discovered the southerly species of Sea Hare, Aplysia depilans, photographed above, a long way down the shore of  Belle Greve Bay shore on the east coast of Guernsey. The intertidal zone contained many more of the Common Sea Hare, Aplysia punctata, which comes inshore to breed in early spring. 

BMLSS Sea Hares
BMLSS Molluscs

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Mailing Groups

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean 
Yahoo Group
New Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Glaucus

With the closure of Smart Groups at the end of November 2006 most of the 7500+ messages have been filed at:

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Jiglu
http://www.Jiglu.com/spaces/glaucus/

Images can be uploaded to flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/glaucus/

NEW
Wet Thumb (Marine Aquariology) Forum Link
 
 

NEW BOOKS:
 
 

Seashore by Lucy Beckett-Bowman Consultant: Andy Horton Usborne Publishing   £3.99 Usborne Beginners Series Level One (very young children) ISBN 978-0-7460-8864-7 BMLSS Notes for a Primary School Teacher

Whales & Dolphins 
of Great Britain
by Dylan Walker and Alex Wilson
CETACEA Publishing 2007
£11.95 
ISBN-10: 0-9556144-0-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-9556144-0-8
 

If you would like to see whales and dolphins in British waters, Whales and Dolphins of Great Britain is the book for you! A comprehensive and easy-to-use field guide to all of the regularly seen species, it also shows you how, where, and when to go and see these spectacular marine mammals, with 38 boat operators and 16 outstanding land-based viewpoints listed. The text is packed with information on how to book a trip; including the species that are likely to be seen, how to get there, and what photographic opportunities are available. If you love whales and dolphins and enjoy seeing the British countryside, this book is a must – you never know when you might need it! 

Whales and Dolphins of Great Britain is the first in a series of regional whale and dolphin watching guides being published by Cetacea Publishing. 

CETACEA Publishing, Nook Farmhouse, Ashby Road, Shepshed, Loughborough, LE12 9BS. Telephone: 0845 388 3053. Fax: 0845 108 6386. 
E-Mail: info@cetaceapublishing.com. Website designed by de Wilson-Wildman LLP 

BMLSS Cetacean Book Reviews
 

The Gulf Stream
by Bruno Voituriez 
Publisher:  UNESCO 
ISBN:  92-3-103995-4 
222 pages, figures, glossary, bibliography

The Gulf Stream
Amid contemporary scenarios of potential climatic catastrophes and global warming that might be imagined to bring a new ice age, the powerful image of the Gulf Stream rising from the Florida Straits and flowing to the north Atlantic inevitably provokes questions about its ecological significance and whether it might ever stop.
 

Coastal Plankton
Photo Guide for European Seas

by Otto Larink & Wilfried Westheide
reviewed by Wim van Egmond
 
 

Seashore  (Collins New Naturalist) (Paperback) by Peter Hayward Collins 2004 ISBN:  0-00-220031-7 Amazon Web Site

Paperback. Pp 288. Colour & b/w photographs, illustrations, charts, maps and bibliography. Fine copy. "New Naturalist" Seashore is a comprehensive, authoritative account of the natural history of the seashore.
 

BMLSS General Guides
BMLSS Advanced Guides