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

[SaltyC]

The law of unintended consequences? Human interference in nature without sufficient research and confirmation. ie following the He who shouts loudest is correct formula, don't offend those protecting the natural environment as they are always correct.

 

[Boathook]

The law of unintended consequences? Human interference in nature without sufficient research and confirmation. ie following the He who shouts loudest is correct formula, don't offend those protecting the natural environment as they are always correct.

Sounds like the government and diesel cars ......

 

[Mister E]

IIRC, the issue is that anchors are destroying the seagrass, which must be why it's been spreading for decades - all those anchors.

We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.
So anchors that set to easily should be banned and only the CQR allowed.

 

[st599]

IIRC, the issue is that anchors are destroying the seagrass, which must be why it's been spreading for decades - all those anchors.

Nope, the anchors disturb the sea bed and the last government decided that rather than do something hard like cut car journeys, they'd rely on sequestration of carbon in the mud in shallow bays and estuaries to hit their targets.

 

[Seven Spades]

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!)

No the problem is that the eel grass and sea horses have been thriving with boats anchoring in the area. The eel grass areas have been expanding for 50 years and what has happened is that they have declared a MCZ and changed the environment the results of which are completely unknown. It is a high risk strategy to make a change like this because you don't know what the result will be. it could be that the action of the anchors has in fact aided the spread of the eel grass.

A similar thing was done in Africa with the problem of desertification, so to protect the land they fenced it off and removed all the animals to allow for the land to recover) the result was a total disaster and the result was that it accelerated the problem. The in a light bulb moment and after a long campaign by an enlightened environmentalist they left the animals back in and very quickly the area reverted to becoming a grassland. It turned out that akll that damaging activity by the animals was in fact fertalishinga dspreading seeds and the action of walking would bury the seeds. I strongly believe that what has happened at Studland is environment vandalism. Not only is the area blighted with ugly buoys whenever there are no boats but I expect a strong negative impact on the eel grass.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I seem to recall a boy scout song about interfering with the status quo. Woodpeckers, but the principle is sound.