Watch: Seahorses off the coast of Devon and Cornwall
A conservationist has said more sightings of seahorses have been reported in the waters around the South West recently.
Neil Garrick-Maidment, the founder of Devon-based The Seahorse Trust, said two of the creatures had been seen in the inner harbour in Torquay for the first time, having previously only been recorded in the outer one.
Andrea Andrews-Benson’s daughter had been crabbing in Torquay’s harbour on Monday when she caught a seahorse and quickly returned it to the water.
She said: “What a beautiful creature, we didn’t realise how rare it was to catch one.”
Andrea Andrews-Benson
Ms Andrews-Benson said they had quickly returned the seahorse to the harbour water
Mr Garrick-Maidment said: “People think they’re this mystical creature that comes from tropical seas and reefs and stuff like that, but they forget that under our own waters, and particularly around the South West peninsula, we have the most amazing biodiverse habitat there is in the world.
“We are at risk of losing it, but there is everything there – look at all the different dolphin species, we’ve now got humpback whales back again, we’ve always had orca living off our waters, we’ve got seahorses, we’ve got jellyfish, the list goes on.”
Neil Garrick-Maidment/The Seahorse Trust
The biggest predator of seahorses is humans, Mr Garrick-Maidment said
Mr Garrick-Maidment described the fish as “an amazing storyteller of what’s going on in the world” and urged people to view seahorses as an indicator of the issues humans pose to nature.
“Everything that happens to seahorses happens to almost every bit of nature that we’ve got,” he explained.
“The challenges to seahorses are endless, to be honest. If it’s not man-made problems, such as habitat loss through anchors, dredging, pollution, people building on the foreshore, it’s natural problems like flash flooding.”
Predators of seahorses include other fish, such as bream and pollock, and seagulls have been know to drop them from height to crack them open.
“The biggest predator of all, as usual, is humans,” Mr Garrick-Maidment said.
Neil Garrick-Maidment/The Seahorse Trust
Seahorses are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
He said seahorses have a mucus covering which protects their skin and this can be rubbed off if they are handled, which could lead to disease and death.
Latent diseases can be triggered by the stress of being handled or being illuminated by divers’ lights, he added.
In 2008 Mr Garrick-Maidment was successful in getting two types of seahorses recognised as a British species and included in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which means a person must have a licence to handle them.
Mr Garrick-Maidment founded The Seahorse Trust which shares an office with Wildwood Devon in Ottery St Mary
In recent years The Seahorse Trust has worked with the Studland Bay Marine Partnership to develop eco-moorings as the seagrass meadow which seahorses thrive in had been damaged by boats’ anchors.
“On every dive, we see seahorses now, whereas at one point, we went two and a half years without a single seahorse, which is pretty remarkable,” Mr Garrick-Maidment said.
“I think the population is stable but we’re very close to going one way or the other.
“So, it only takes a disaster, you know, where somebody builds on the foreshore and there’s an oil spill, or something like that, and all the life in the area is wiped out.
“Nature is so fragile, it only takes one little trigger and it’s overturned.
“But we’re okay at the moment,” he concluded.