Cornwall Wildlife Trust - Wild Cornwall

Male Cuckoo Wrasse and Jewel Anemones

Cup corals & cuckoo wrasse

Divers around Cornwall are not just busy blowing bubbles any more, but actively helping to movide the vital information needed to helo conserve our marine environment for the future.

Over the past few months almost 100 recreational divers have attended Seasearch training courses around the county. The simple one-day course shows them how to identify certain marine habitats and species and how to tell us what they see whilst they explore beneath the waves.

These divers are now carrying out surveys of the underwater world to help fill in the gaps in our knowledge of what marine life is found where around our coast. Only then can we really start to protect this important environment from the many and varied threats it faces. Some of the Seasearch surveys carried out so far have given some

great results. Did you know we have beautiful scarlet and gold cup corals growing off St. Agnes/ kelp forests and rock faces covered with brightly coloured jewel anemones off Penzance, or crevices with pairs of eyes belonging to spider crabs and lobsters off Bude? On one dive which everyone had done many times before what had at first seemed like a muddy-bottomed dive site covered in silt turned out to be literally crawling with life -hermit crabs tube worms burrowing anemones and even the occasional cuttlefish camouflaged against the sand. The wealth of life around our coasts is amazing when you start to look/ and that's what Seasearch divers are doing.

All records from dives are being entered into both local and national databases and the information gathered is already being used to help monitor areas such as St. Agnes No Take Zone and identify biodiversity hotspots. Hopefully the surveys will start to flood in and contribute to this important work and future conservation projects. We will be running more Seasearch courses and dives in the future and want to encourage as many divers out there to become involved. Any dive can be a Seasearch dive!

If you'd like to get involved please get in touch on (01872) 273939.

Ruth Williams
Marine Conservation Officer

FREE FILMS FOR SCHOOLS ... IN BID TO SAVE SEA MAMMALS!

'Marine Team", a dramatic new 67 minute marine wildlife rescue documentary narrated by Jenny Agutter and filmed In the West country Is being offered free to schools.

It features, amongst others, the National Seal Sanctuary and British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR).
Seal and coastal expert Stephen Westcott provides a" view from the wild".

"One of the unfortunate facts our film highlights is that many seal pups run into trouble primarily because of well intended but misguided human interference," said co-producer Martin Gaunt.

The film goes on sale this August. For more details log on to;