|
A dead Bottlenose Dolphin with it’s tail cut
off was discovered floating in St. Ives harbour on Thursday 11th
October. It is not absolutely clear what caused it’s death, but
it certainly had it’s tail severed and there were line marking
on the body, so it is likely that it had become entangled in
nets and drowned, and the tail would have been cut off to remove
it from the net when it was hauled up.
There is a local pod which is regularly seen
around West Cornwall comprising about a dozen animals, as well
as one or two solitary dolphins and a pair of young males and it
is a big concern of The Wildlife Trust and the Marine Strandings
network that if every now and again one of them gets caught in
gill
nets, the pod will not be able to survive around Cornwall.
Throughout September a very rare colonial hydroid
Apolemia uvaria,
became quite common, for they were turning up all along the
south coast of Penwith. This creature is, like the
Portuguese-man-of-War, a colony of different creatures, and has
long tentacles hanging from a floating bladder, which can be 30
ft long. The parts seen were all short broken off pieces of the
tentacles, These short pieces, called Pearl Chains, are still
alive and able to give anyone a nasty sting, but not as
dangerous as the Man-of-War. The strange fact is that no one
reported seeing the full creature with the floating bladder, so
where did all the pieces of living tentacles come from?
There were reports of seven cast up
Portuguese-man-of-War stranded on various beaches during
August, and I wonder if these were misidentified, and were in
fact the remains of
Apolemia uvaria.
 Other
rare finds were very large Sea Hares,
Aplysia depilans.
The common species of Sea Hare in our waters is
Aplysia punctata
which can reach 20 cm extended
length but usually found less than 10 cm. long, but
Aplysia depilans
can reach 30 cm in length and
is usually associated with warmer waters of the Channel Islands,
Atlantic France, the Mediterranean and West Africa.
By counting the rings in the shell of an
Oceanic Clam dredged up off Iceland researchers at Bangor
University have been able to calculate its age at 405 to 410
years old, making it the longest-lived animal ever discovered. A
similar clam in an Icelandic museum was discovered to be 374
years old, so this clam, nicknamed “Ming” is at least 37 years
older. It was given the name “Ming” after the Chinese dynasty in
power when it was born.
There were 12 reported sightings of
Bottlenose Dolphins during October, all from the early part of
the month, up to the 18th. However there were 8 other reports of
unidentified dolphins, which were probably Bottlenose Dolphins,
including, a sighting of three seen off Newquay on the 21st.
Common Dolphins were reported 8 times, and there were 2 other
sightings of pods of 50 plus and 200 plus which were probably
Common Dolphins. There was one report from an aerial survey of
30 or more Risso's Dolphins around the Longships Lighthouse on
the 12th.
Minke Whales were sighted 4 times, a pair and
2 singles off Gwennap Head and another from The Scillonian.
Blows or spouts of another whale off Gwennap head could have
been a Humpback. Harbour Porpoises were sighted 17 times
including pods of 19+ and 25 or more.
Ocean Sunfish were still being seen up to the
13th of the month, with 6 reports up to that date. Other reports
from divers have been large Sea Hares. A Triggerfish was caught
off Penarrow Head with two parasitic Goose Barnacles attached to
scar tissue on its head. These barnacles are usually found
attached to larger sea creatures like whales.
There have been 59 dead cetaceans found
stranded on Cornish beaches this year up to the end of
September, 31 of these were Common Dolphins, 19 were Harbour
Porpoises, also one Striped Dolphin and a Bottlenose Dolphin .
Seven other carcasses were badly decomposed and not identified.
Top of the list of strandings were Grey
Seals, there were 42 including 7 pups. With this number of
losses, one wonders how the seal population seem to remain
viable around |
