Looking for Coastal Life
Kent's Seashore At Risk
Great Britain has an amazing, intriguing, dangerous and beautiful coastline. It ranges from marshes, shingle beaches to rocky escarpments, quiet coves and glorious sandy beaches. Britain’s coastline is also one of the world’s longest stretching for over 11,477 miles. Of these miles there are over one thousand islands that range in size from rocks jutting from beneath the waves to islands the size of counties such as the Isle of Mann and the Isle of Wight.
If you step back for a while from the scenery very quickly you realize just how precious out coastline is as has been proved by the Bafta award winning television documentary series Coast. Whilst their visits to locations along our shoreline were fleeting there are opportunities for the rest of us to enjoy our coastline and to put something back too.
Kent has One of the Longest Coastlines in the United Kingdom
The county of Kent has one of the largest stretches of coast of any county stretching from Gravesend to the border with East Sussex near Camber. Almost every conceivable marine environment is encountered around the route. Kent Wildlife Trust’s Shoresearch survey undertakes regular surveys throughout each year of these precious sites. The searches utilize volunteers to walk the coastline and monitor flora and fauna and have in the past discovered 45 different species living on the shore and 15 others washed up on the beaches that have included Portuguese oysters, slipper limpets, snake pipefish and Velvet swimming crabs.
In 2009 the group also undertook numerous weekend dives to monitor fish and marine life close to shore. In particular they searched for and discovered large numbers of snake pipefish – a close relative of the seahorse, which last year were seen in abundance. Some of Kent’s finest beaches are at risk and Kent Wildlife Trust would like to hear from anybody willing to help in their work both on the shore-search and their other work across Kent.
The Wildlife Surveys Will Continue Annually
The annual surveys will, Kent Wildlife Trust insists, continue and as they generate ever more interest in their activities the numbers of volunteers prepared the walk the hundreds of miles of Kent's coastline grows. It is through this activity that a database of information is slowly emerging into the health of the local sea habitat around Kent's coastline.
What is becoming clear is that as the waters around the United Kingdom grow warmer through climate change the variety of life forms is changing too. In place of more traditional species rarer and more exotic species are being discovered whilst more established traditional types are being displaced.
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