Westcountry Seas ‘Barren Wasteland’ Says Wildlife Trust

The seas around the Westcountry have become a "barren wasteland" for large fish and mammals, conservationists have warned.

The Wildlife Trust is raising the alarm as large fish and mammals such as dolphins and basking sharks, which have become a much-loved sight off the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, could become extinct without due protection.

According to new research by Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at York University and Natural England, the number of dolphins and porpoises has dropped by 95 per cent with the rise of large-scale fishing in the past two centuries.

Now the Wildlife Trust is campaigning for the Government to include tough new laws in the proposed Marine Bill to help preserve the giants of the seas and create highly protected marine reserves.

Joanna Doyle, marine conservation officer with Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said: "The seas around Cornwall and the rest of the UK are a barren wasteland compared to what they used to be like just a century ago.

"Our children will look at us in disbelief at how much damage we have allowed to occur and turned a blind eye to. Only through protecting areas of the sea will we ever get close to realising the abundance of life that our seas can support and used to support.

"We need everyone to push the Government to protect our oceans through the Marine Bill to allow our marine wildlife the chance to recover."

Prof Roberts found basking sharks were once abundant along the west coasts of the British Isles and in the Westcountry in spring and summer.

Now, after decades of over-fishing and despite their being placed on the protected species list, basking sharks have declined dramatically with no more than a few hundred animals remaining in UK waters today.

Only 500 to 600 bottlenose dolphins remain in the UK, most of them in Scotland and Wales.

In the South West region, there is a small group of inshore bottlenose dolphins, which travel up and down the coast of Cornwall and Devon.

Bottlenose dolphins were frequently seen around the Cornish coast until the seventies when they disappeared, possibly as a result of high pollutant levels in inshore waters.

The inshore pod reappeared in Cornwall in 1991 but declined in size over the years, from an average of 18 in 1991 to six in 2008.

Mrs Doyle said: "The cause of this decline is currently unknown but the high level of gill nets used around the Cornish coast is thought to be, in part, responsible."

Harbour porpoises were also once abundant in Westcountry estuaries and harbours. They have now all but disappeared because of pollution.

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