Call for protection area to save sharks
THREATENED basking sharks would be one of many creatures to benefit from protected marine reserves.
It has been a record summer for these huge plankton-eating sharks, with many seen off the Cornish coast, but none surfacing off Dorset.
"That is quite unusual," said Emma Rance, marine warden at Dorset Wildlife Trust's Purbeck Marine Wildlife Reserve.
"Over the last three years we have consistently had one or two sightings in the summer period."
But she thinks the lack of sightings in Dorset could be because of the poor weather and people not being on the sea looking out for a dorsal fin, rather than the lack of the creatures visiting our shores to scoop up plankton in their huge mouths.
An amazing 450 in one day had been reported and they are now suffering from their tourist attraction status.
One shark was reported to have died last week after being caught in nets off Cornwall and another had two fins sliced off by a speedboat propeller as crowds headed out to see them.
This has led to renewed calls from the Marine Conse-rvation Society for highly protected marine reserves to be set up along the coast.
A Marine Bill was promised in 2005 but has yet to be implemented and DWT is among bodies actively campaigning for it.
"It has not been given the high priority it deserves," said Emma, who is urging people to sign the Petition Fish, which will be presented at the House of Commons on October 10. It can be found on wildlifetrusts.org.
"There is only one area of the UK that is protected against damaging activity and that is one-thousandth of a per cent of our seas," she said.
However the 3.3km of protected sea off Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, where fishing, diving and aggregate collection is banned, has pro-ved very successful since 2003 and is sustainable, she said.
The Dorset coast would be an ideal place site for a highly protected reserve, as would Lyme Bay where the UKs only soft coral, the seafan was under threat from scallop dredgers, she added.
Meanwhile George the bottlenose dolphin was amusing people at West Bay Harbour in west Dorset over the weekend. The 10ft long dolphin swam under boats and was stroked by delighted sight-seers.
However Dolphin Wildlife Trust has stressed that however friendly dolphins appear they are large and powerful wild animals and should not be approached.
8:00am Tuesday 11th September 2007
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