Wild Dorset
CITIZEN SCIENCE A NEW GENERATION
Alison Ferris, Deputy Senior Warden, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre
T
his year the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre has introduced new, free Citizen Science events to get more local people and visitors involved with marine species identification on the beaches at Charmouth and Lyme Regis. Although a coastal centre, we have always been very focused on safe and sustainable fossil collecting along the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The Lyme Bay reefs became the country’s largest protected marine reserve in 2008 and Plymouth University have been monitoring the recovery of the bay, which had previously been damaged by dredging. There are very rare sunset corals and pink sea fans in the bay, which have now recovered along with the scallop population. Although the recovery of Lyme Bay has been successful, coastal areas face new challenges from climate change, marine pollution and invasive species. We have for years run rockpool rambles in Lyme Regis and Charmouth but, in recent years, have noticed differences in the species we are finding around our coasts. The Heritage Centre therefore introduced free events to raise awareness. We started beach cleaning events in 2015 in co-ordination 44 | Bridport Times | September 2019
with Litter Free Coast and Sea: on our very first event we had over 70 attendees. Charmouth now has its own Plastic-free Charmouth Committee and many of the local businesses are making changes from single-use plastics. We also run nurdle hunts (nurdles are microplastics) and a local action group has been investigating the sources of these microplastics on our beach, including bio beads which come from sewage treatment plants. We have recently visited two sewage treatment plants to understand why we have bio beads washing up on our beaches and this work is ongoing. We participate in the Marine Conservation Society Great British Beach Clean every September and Charmouth Parish Council has recently supported the purchase of new equipment. We run beach cleaning and nurdle hunting events regularly and anyone can join in. We provide all the equipment. We had a successful Shark Egg Case Hunt in which we searched the strandline for egg cases, or mermaids’ purses as they are more commonly known, and identify them for the Sharks Trust. This helps the Sharks Trust understand which species lay eggs in our waters. There are 21 species of shark (including deep water species)