Are pleasure boats to blame for sinking number of seahorses?
WEALTHY pleasure boat owners have been blamed for destroying Britain’s most important site for seahorses.
Studland Bay in Dorset is the only place in UK waters where both native species – spiny and short-snouted varieties – have been spotted together.
However, their numbers have dived in the past decade. The Seahorse Trust found just one dead spiny seahorse in the bay this year, compared to 40 live ones in 2008.
It blames the decline on anchors from visiting pleasure boats churning up the delicate seagrass beds, which provide a breeding ground for them. The bay is close to the millionaires’ paradise of Sandbanks in Poole and is a popular spot for weekend daytrippers and water sports enthusiasts.
The trust has now made an application to the Government to make the area a protected Marine Conservation Zone, which would ban anchors and reverse the damage.
A decision by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is expected within months.
‘This site should be thriving and vibrant but it is now a bit of a desert,’ said Neil Garrick-Maidment, head of the trust. ‘This situation is not beyond recovery if we take action now. There are seahorses living in deeper waters off Dorset so they may return if we can reverse damage to their habitat.’
However, Jon Reid, a spokesman for the Boat Owners Response Group, whose members regularly use the bay, said: ‘Studland Bay has been used by boat owners going back 70 years and seagrass has always been there. Why is there suddenly an issue now? We are not anti-conservation but if restrictions are imposed on boats this needs to be done effectively and backed up by clear evidence.’
The trust logs each seahorse with photo ID that records individual markings on their heads.
The spiny seahorse, or Hippocampus histrix to use its Latin name, grows to about 6in.
Males give birth after the female deposits hundreds of eggs in its pouch during the mating process.