2019/08/28 Planet Rock Maerl and Flame Shell Nests
Andy Jackson of SubSea.TV had been working closely with Ali Hughson of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation and Sea Change Wester Ross to map maerl in the Wester Ross Marine Protected Area since 2016. Naturally when a maerl bed at Eilean Dubh (Black Isle) in the Summer Isles was illegal dredged, Andy came up to support the telling of this story, alongside divers George Brown and Chris Rickard. They also wanted to film healthy maerl so they dived at Planet Rock one of the sites we had been monitoring. To their astonishment they noted the maerl was now colonised by flame shells and had towering nests within magnificently captured by Andy in his video. Andy also captured some of the rich diversity that lives on the maerl - with Chris’s photos below. Between them they show only a small fraction of the 200 species that inhabit maerl - the most diverse habitat we have in the UK.
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