Studlands great disappearing Seahorse mystery finally explained - and it wasn't the boats!

Tranona

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I shall check out the black bream when I go to Greenslades this morning to get my Christmas lobsters. I sometimes have locally caught bream but don't recall finding much in their stomachs, maybe because they are rather small.
 

doug748

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"In Dorset, a black bream caught at Poole Bay contained 38 seahorses – which have few predators as they are well camouflaged – in a case that baffled experts."


We assume they are baffled as to how they can blame it on global warming or leisure boats.
 

ylop

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"In Dorset, a black bream caught at Poole Bay contained 38 seahorses – which have few predators as they are well camouflaged – in a case that baffled experts."
Doesn’t that actually support the argument for protecting the habitat, without which these monsters will consume all the seahorses? (I actually have no opinion on studland bay - but I don’t think anyone ever suggested anchors were squashing sea horses directly!)
 

Daydream believer

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I think that the argument could be, that by creating such zones, it allows the greenies a better chance to study nature, operating on its own & how it inter reacts with itself, without the excesses of the human element.
I do not think it is to help us decide how much batter to put on the sea bream & whether we can put seahorse on the menue :cry:
 

chrishscorp

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Doesn’t that actually support the argument for protecting the habitat, without which these monsters will consume all the seahorses? (I actually have no opinion on studland bay - but I don’t think anyone ever suggested anchors were squashing sea horses directly!)
Sea horses are all over the place but such is the hoo har over them when they are spotted they are thrown back in to the sea and politely ignored
 

oldharry

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Doesn’t that actually support the argument for protecting the habitat, without which these monsters will consume all the seahorses? (I actually have no opinion on studland bay - but I don’t think anyone ever suggested anchors were squashing sea horses directly!)
Its all quite sad really: The MCZ was created to protect the eelgrass from damage they claimed that anchoring was doing. The fact that everyone knows the eelgrass had established and was spreading rapidly in this highly popular anchorage was ignored by the Researchers. The MCZ was created to protect the eelgrass and the habitat it provides for a range of species. Sea Bream are a protected species and breed in places like Studland. The Seahorses are claimed to breed there but in fact rarely do compared to other much more active seahorse colony sites nearby - which incidentally are not MCZs. Nor are they in such a pleasant place to do research and be paid to go swimming!

Arguably, as happens so often, the MCZ 'protection' upsets the delicate balances between predators and prey. In Australia for example an MCZ to protect a seahorse colony was so succesful that the predators actually ate the entire colony. (Harasti) Looks like that may be starting to happen here as well.....:eek:
 

KeithMD

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"In Dorset, a black bream caught at Poole Bay contained 38 seahorses – which have few predators as they are well camouflaged – in a case that baffled experts."

We assume they are baffled as to how they can blame it on global warming or leisure boats.

According to the Bournemouth Echo, they already have. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that it's a larger predator species eating the sacred little seahorses.

A BLACK bream fish that contained 38 seahorses has been given as an example of a ‘climate change indicator’ by the Wildlife Trusts.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/n...taining-38-seahorses-climate-change-indicator
 
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