Seahorses and little terns make comeback

Seahorses, little terns and crawfish are among the creatures making a comeback with the help of conservation action around the UK’s coasts, the Wildlife Trusts has said.

It has also been a good year for sightings of marine wildlife as thousands of volunteers helped survey shores around the country to gather information and monitor marine protected areas, a review of the year has found.

It has been a bumper year for nudibranch, or sea slugs, say trusts, a good autumn for sightings of curled octopus and basking sharks were seen in Cardigan Bay for the first time in three years.

But there was bad news too for marine wildlife, with millions of creatures washed up on beaches along the North Sea coast after a storm in March.

There were sewage spills and storm drains dumping wet wipes and sanitary products on to beaches, while plastic continues to be a major problem and beach cleans took tonnes of litter off the shoreline.

On Alderney, plastic is now present in almost 100% of gannet nests, mostly from fishing industry rope or line, posing a significant risk to birds and chicks.

Beach cleans on the Isle of Wight collected 400 bags of rubbish, while Welsh Wildlife Trust collections picked up 14,095 pieces of litter and in Kent, some 2,892 kilograms of rubbish and 60 shopping trolleys were collected from the Medway Estuary.