2019/09/23 Planet Rock Maerl Transect
In Wester Ross the scallop divers are our eyes underwater. In 2016 the Wester Ross Marine Protected Area was ratified by Parliament and came in to force. Ali Hughson, a local scallop diver for the Scottish Scallop Divers Association (part of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation) set out with members of Sea Change Wester Ross and SubSeaTV to explore the Marine Protected Area.
The aim was to map the existing maerl beds in the MPA, find new maerl beds in unsurveyed areas and monitor recovery of the now protected maerl. Maerl was the keystone species in Wester Ross and the aim of the Marine Protected Area is to “recover” it from damage by scallop dredgers. In 2016 thanks to Ali we discovered an extensive maerl bed at ‘Planet rock’ and in 2018 we returned to set up a transect on it. These images below are from our 2019 survey in September when we returned to monitor that transect. We did not note signs of colonisation by flame shells - yet Andy Jackson, George Brown and Chris Rickard had filmed near to this transect a month before noting large towers or nests of flame shells. During the week long survey we also returned to transects at Fada-Tanera beg, Fox point and we set a fourth transect up in Loch Ewe.
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