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- Albatross: Ocean navigators par excellence.
- Scallop dredging: how we approach marine habitat protection from entirely the wrong direction.
- Nitrogen narcosis, Rapture of the Depths, what do we really know about it?
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Tag Archives: scallop dredging impacts
Scallop dredging: how we approach marine habitat protection from entirely the wrong direction.
Scallop dredging is a crude, inefficient, non-selective, and hugely destructive means of collecting shellfish. It is akin to using a bulldozer to collect mushrooms. If you were to plough through the top few inches of soil with a bulldozer bucket, … Continue reading
Posted in Lyme Bay marine ecology
Tagged bottom towed fishing gear, fisheries impacts, fishing environmental impacts, fishing gear habitat impacts, fishing gear seabed impacts, fishing impacts, Lane's Ground reef, Lyme Bay, marine ecology, marine environmental impacts, Marine Protected Areas, Marine zoning, scallop dredgers, scallop dredging, scallop dredging impacts, seabed habitat assessment, seabed habitat destruction, The Exeters Reef
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Scallop dredging: why is it considered so damaging to reefs?
I first wrote this blog back in 2012. If moved off-site for several years, but in 2020 I’ve reinstated it, with a few very minor changes. Lyme bay now has statutory protection from scallop dredging, and all towed bottom fishing … Continue reading
Posted in Lyme Bay marine ecology
Tagged fisheries habitat impacts, Lyme Bay, Lyme Bay Closed Area, Lyme Bay Reefs, marine conservation, mobile fishing gear, scallop dredging, scallop dredging damage, scallop dredging impacts, seabed damage, seabed habitat destruction, seabed impacts, towed fishing gear habitat impacts
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Lyme Bay, Lane’s Ground Reef: sponge species recovery and opportunities lost
As part of a small study looking in to gear impacts on seabed species, we recently conducted a few dives attempting to record HD video of bottom trawls and crab pots working on the seabed. Unfortunately we picked a period … Continue reading
Posted in Lyme Bay marine ecology
Tagged bottom fishing impacts, bottom trawling impacts, Lyme Bay, Lyme Bay Closed Area, Lyme Bay closed area monitoring, Lyme Bay exclusion zone, lyme Bay protected area, Lyme Bay Reefs, mobile fishing gear impacts, scallop dredging, scallop dredging impacts, sponge assemblages, sponge communities
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Lyme Bay Reefs
As I’ve been writing a fair amount about Lyme Bay and the Lyme Bay Closed Area protection and its effects recently, I thought I’d post a small selection of images to illustrate why the reefs of Lyme Bay are so … Continue reading
Posted in Lyme Bay marine ecology
Tagged circalittoral reef, circalittoral reefs, East Tennants Reef, Eunicella verrucosa, Leptopsammia pruvoti, limestone reefs, Lyme Bay, Lyme Bay Closed Area, Lyme Bay exclusion zone, Lyme Bay Reefs, marine ecology, pink seafans, Saw-tooth Ledges, scallop dredging, scallop dredging impacts, seafan seaslug, sunset coral, Tritonia nilsodnheri
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Lyme Bay Closed Area Monitoring: what we have learned so far.
After almost 18 years of research, campaigning and negotiation, statutory protection for the most vuulnerable reefs in Lyme Bay became a reality in 2008. This was deemed necessary as, despite voluntary agreements, it was apparent the damage to the reefs … Continue reading
Posted in Lyme Bay marine ecology, Seabed survey and monitoring
Tagged bottom trawling impacts, diver monitoring, Lyme Bay Closed Area, Lyme Bay closed area monitoring, Lyme Bay monitoring, Lyme Bay no-take zone, lyme Bay protected area, marine bio-images, Marine Conservation Zones, MCZs, scallop dredging, scallop dredging impacts
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