MCS turtle puppets go international!

Sea Champions Tom and Claudia have been helping our Volunteer Coordinator Matt up in Scotland for a couple of years now, during which time they've become a dab hand at talking to the public about marine conservation. It's great to see them taking our trusty turtle and jellyfish activities over the water to Costa Rica. Tom tells us a bit more about what they've been up to. 

Having volunteered with MCS for a few years whilst at university, my girlfriend and I had the opportunity put these skills into practice a bit further afield. The Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica is one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, and it was here that we were lucky enough to work as Research Assistants with the NGO Latin American Sea Turtles (LAST).

In-between tagging hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata) and green turtles (Chelonia mydas), replanting mangroves and surveying sea grass beds, we also worked on community outreach programs around the country. Having made many turtle puppets and egg carton jellyfish with children around Scotland at various MCS events, we were well equipped to now do these activities with Costa Rican kids!

Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) visit the UK in the summer to feed on jellyfish, but then return to the Caribbean and Central America to nest. It was very exciting to know that the turtles we were teaching about in the UK were probably the same ones as in Costa Rica! This just shows the importance of international protection and education, and that what we do at home can affect animals from across the other side of the planet.

Sea Champion Andy has been "bigging-up" his beach clean!

Volunteer Andy wears two hats. By day he’s a Marks & Spencer employee and Plan A Champion and by night/weekend/any-spare-minute he’s a MCS Sea Champion. (He’s all about the championing!) Andy recently helped to organise the M&S MCS collaborative Big Beach Clean-up at his local beach in Formby and we caught up with him for the low down on how it went. Be sure to check out the photos, you won’t have any trouble spotting Andy, he’s the one dressed as a lobster!

"I've been running beach cleaning events at Formby for a number of years now, I really enjoy running beach clean events as it’s such as change from my normal day job with my Marks & Spencer.

This year I ran an event for the Big Beach Clean-up which is a partnership between my employer and MCS. It was an early start as The BBC Breakfast weather team arrived to broadcast the weather live from the beach during the beach clean. I was delighted that my event attracted over 300 volunteers which included over 100 school children and even the local area Mayor came along. 

I really enjoy running events such as beach cleans because it feels so good to be contributing to the conservation of our most precious environments. The events are great fun to run and be involved in especially when you can dress up as lobster and appear on national TV! It also feels great to promote such as valuable charity such as MCS."

Well, the Big Beach Clean-up may be done for another year but if you're getting litter picker withdrawal don't worry, the Great British Beach Clean is back this September. Keep an eye on our Beachwatch webpages for details.

Oceans Alive! Sea Champions take our workshops into schools

At the end of 2014 we ran three training days for Sea Champions interested in working with children, teaching them how to deliver our education workshops. It’s now a few months on and they have done a fantastic job getting out in their local communities sharing our messages with the young marine conservationists of the future. Sea Champion Imogen tells us how things have been going so far. 

2015 for me was all about trying something new and this is exactly why I decided to help deliver educational sessions for the Marine Conservation Society. Teaching was something I had never really considered and I the thought of over two-hundred children watching your every move in an assembly I found quite daunting. However, after a training day in Bristol with MCS, ironically teaching me how to teach, I was ready for my first school!

My first visit was to a school in Plymouth and it coincided with British Science Week, which was fantastic as everyone was dressed head to toe in science gear! The day started off with delivering the ‘Oceans Alive Assembly’ to the entire school. This assembly includes a marine litter game, where we ask some children to pick an item of litter and guess how long they think it takes to degrade. The best way to describe this game is as ‘controlled chaos’! The assembly hall suddenly goes into uproar, with children shouting or talking to their neighbour about the task in hand. I personally think it is fantastic to hear over 100 students discussing marine litter all at once because it really shows how these workshops are working.

After the assembly, I also had the opportunity to deliver the ‘Aliens of the Deep’ workshop to children in Year 3. It’s a wonderful feeling teaching school children about our oceans. Many are fascinated by what animals can live in the deep sea; with a special mention to the Blobfish that never fails to have a classroom filled with laughter.  After the workshop there were so many questions, each one being completely different from the next. Someone could be asking “how long does plastic take to degrade?” Another asking, “why are there fish in the sea?” It always keeps me on my toes!

Requests for these workshops all over Plymouth have started rolling in, and the calendar started filling up. Since then, I have been able to deliver these workshops to two more schools and have another five lined up.  I can honestly say that I am loving every second!

I was also fortunate enough to win a science outreach competition called “I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here”. Imagine X Factor, but for scientists! Within this competition I was against other scientists communicating with kids about our research and our ideas on science as a whole. I am over the moon to say I won and received £500 to spend on science outreach. I didn’t have to think twice about donating it to the educational sessions with MCS and I can’t wait to see how this money can further develop the sessions. 

I would really encourage people to get involved in these educational sessions as they are so rewarding, and enjoyable. You can see first-hand how these workshops make an impact.  If you are like me, and find public speaking a bit scary, this is the perfect opportunity to boost your confidence.  It is perfect because you will be fully supported by the Sea Champions and Education team at MCS who will train you and help you to get started

So... three schools down, plenty more to go!

Cleaning up the Norfolk coastline with Sea Champion Michelle

Volunteers and 130kg litter cleaned up!

Michelle loves the beach but was getting increasingly upset by the amount of litter that she found on her seaside strolls so she decided to become a Sea Champion and do something about it!

 

I have always loved the beach and found the ocean a fascinating place; so many wonderful creatures and beautiful areas. One of my favourite childhood memories is looking in rock pools for crabs, shrimps and starfish and just watching them do their thing. Walking along the shore and seeing the small common jelly fish looking like tiny jewels along the tide line waiting for the sea to come and collect them is one of the many natural and simple beauties and it’s completely free!

  

Spot the polystyrene pieces!

One thing that has always annoyed me is litter. Not only is it unsightly and a danger to the public but the effect it has on marine life is devastating. So many times I have admired our beautiful Norfolk beaches only to have that beauty tarnished by somebody’s discarded plastic bag or whole bags full of litter where someone has enjoyed a picnic and left the litter behind. One of the most disgusting sites that I find particularly annoying is the dog mess left in plastic bags. I would often walk along the beach collecting bags of litter and couldn't help wondering why more was not being done! Then I discovered the Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch program and decided to become a Beachwatch organiser, organising clean ups at the beach I grew up near.

Part of an unwanted chair

I started organising cleans at Bacton and Walcott beach in North Norfolk. This then extended to Sea – Palling beach as well which is a pretty bay abundant with wildlife including grey seals which I have recently started wardening. I organise clean ups once a month or more covering four small beaches and try to get as many locals involved as I can as well as non-locals too. To start with I had a bit of difficulty trying to get people involved but after a few cleans word has got out and more and more people are joining in, we even have some regulars which is great!

There's even an old hoover in here!

In 2014 we did around 20 beach cleans and over 800 kg of rubbish was picked up. The main marine litter culprits were plastic, tarpaulin, rope along the breakers, fishing gear and polystyrene. I have found a hoover, deck chair frames, a dingy, part of an air balloon, wind breakers and even part of a toilet!

If you ever visit North Norfolk why not join in? I have a Facebook page you can visit for updates and the cleans are also on the Beachwatch events page. They are always a great day out and its very rewarding. It is a great feeling knowing you are doing your bit to help!

 

A Sea Champion on Ascension Island: Green Turtles, shooting stars and half a Chinese washing machine

Team turtle raking the beach ready for the next night's turtle activity

Emily Cunningham was one of the original pilot Sea Champions and got stuck in organising beach cleans, manning stalls and doing litter surveys all whilst studying Marine Biology at Bangor University. She has since worked to reduce beach litter through beach clean activities and community engagement in both Sri Lanka and on Ascension Island and has been kind enough to share a little about the work she’s done below.

Few people have heard of Ascension Island, a 5 by 7 mile speck of volcanic rock located 1600km from Africa and 2250km from Brazil and even fewer have been lucky enough to visit. I’ll hold my hands up and say that I’d never heard of it – until I saw a job advert for a Marine Turtle Programme Coordinator online and was enlightened by a bit of google searching. After a successful Skype interview, my partner and I took the position as a job share and off we went!

Using the turtle sledge to help females back to sea

Ascension Island hosts the Atlantic’s second largest nesting population of Green Turtles and our job was to coordinate the monitoring programme. Rising at dawn each day, the team (affectionately known as “Team Turtle”) would check known strandings hotspots and help exhausted 250kg female turtles back to the sea - sometimes with the aid of our bespoke turtle sledge (see picture). We’d then survey 3 index beaches, counting individual tracks and nests, before raking them away ahead of the next night’s activity. As well as running twice weekly turtle tours for visitors and the odd VIP, we would head out to the index beaches to monitor nest productivity. The hottest hours of the day were our downtime – for snorkelling or snoozing – ahead of the night shift. My favourite “task” was watching shooting stars and listening to the careful excavation of an egg chamber.

Ascension Island has received a lot of attention lately – it’s one of the three British Overseas Territories proposed as huge marine reserves. If all three are designated, the UK Government would increase the amount of ocean under full protection by 50%. But what about the threats that marine reserves can’t protect against? I’ve been a Sea Champion working to help combat marine litter for years - but the marine litter on Ascension Island (an isolated island with a transient population of 800) was the worst I had ever seen. We did a MCS Beachwatch survey of 2 exposed bays on the South Coast and found hundreds of plastic bottles, strapping, kilometres of rope, decades of driftwood, odd flip flops, buoys, a freezer, hair gel from Congo and half a Chinese washing machine!

Ascension Island sings like a canary of the marine litter problem – it is global. No beach, no matter how remote, is free of litter. It’s a reminder of how important the work of Sea Champions really is and how in acting locally, we protect globally. Although the problem is daunting, every beach clean we organise and every talk we give is part of the solution. Being a Sea Champion has been an important part of my career (and personal) development and I wish all the other Sea Champions the best of luck in finding your dream job! Thanks MCS for being a big part in helping me achieve mine.

Emily is now proud to be the Living Seas Officer at Cheshire Wildlife Trust, managing a Marine Litter Project on the Dee Estuary. For general rants about plastic bags and how amazing UK seas are, follow her on Twitter @eegeesea. 

Tyres for Terns!

Here’s a great story from the Forth Estuary where Scottish Sea Champions have turned fly tipped tyres into wildlife habitats! Volunteer Coordinator Matt gives us the low-down.

So on our typical quarterly beach cleans and surveys in the Forth Estuary in 2014 we found scores of fly-tipped tyres. Rather than leave these to deteriorate into the waters we decided to put them to good use.

It was mucky work as the tyres were dumped untreated and contained thick oils and contaminants that were leaching into the waters. Luckily the Great British public and Sea Champion volunteers rose to the challenge and thankfully wore old clothing! The tyres were collected and cleaned to remove chemicals and oils. Now to find a use for them rather than landfill.

Common Terns are one of our amazing species that migrate thousands of miles to our shores each summer to breed. These little fellas aren’t doing so well and have been declining in recent years. Originally they were found throughout the Forth Estuary but a mixture of disturbance, predation and vegetation growth can lead to nests failing. Most now nest in the Specially Protected Area at Leith Docks off Edinburgh but you know the saying about all your eggs and one basket so we started to look for alternate habitats to give them a helping hand.

There are numerous disused piers in the estuary that can accommodate terns if the conditions are right, this little beauty has Terns on it each year but not breeding successfully due to the exposed areas. 

Terns have been known to use rafts created from tyres to protect chicks from the elements, disturbance and from view from would be predators. So on a calm day Scottish Sea Champions set out to install the tyres and secure them with chains to create a potential seabird nesting habitat.

It would have been a long swim out but thankfully our friends at the Maid of the Forth were on hand to offer one of their wildlife watching vessels stationed in South Queensferry and North Berwick http://www.maidoftheforth.co.uk/

After a little bit of effort from some passionate people we have hopefully helped our feathered marine friends for the 2015 breeding season. Mission complete!

G’Day from Jimmy & Claire, our honorary Aussie Sea Champions

When we were contacted last summer by Jimmy explaining that he was coming to the UK for a couple of months and would love to get involved with Sea Champions we certainly didn’t want to turn a kind offer of help away so our solution was to make Jimmy and his sister Claire honorary Sea Champions! Read on to hear about their marine conservation adventures as they made their way round the UK coastline.

"In the beginning of July 2014, my sister Claire and I made our way to London and then out west, and ended up helping at a stand on an insanely cramped beach in sunny Weymouth, England. Here, this story begins, that being our adventure along the stunning British coastline.

I’d chosen to get in touch with the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) prior to leaving Australia to organise some volunteering. Coming off a cracker of a summer on the Victorian coast, having thrown myself into everything from rock-pool rambles to night time snorkels chasing dumpling squid, and a few days micro-chipping fairy penguins in between, I was pumping with energy and enthusiasm to continue to help out wherever I could, even if that was in a foreign land.

Volunteering with MCS introduced us to a new way of travelling. We continued to explore but now with a new twist, one with a deeper purpose than simply taking in the towns, countryside and people on display. We started to see the coastline as our own, with our holiday time allocated to cleaning beaches of vast piles of rubbish rubbing off on us, forming a sense of ownership that transcends homogenised ‘borders’.

We offered MCS an opportunity to visually promote large tracts of the British coast from the eyes of a road-tripper, live, through social media such as twitter and Instagram. Each night, as Claire was settling down in her half-broken tent, I was in the two-door car with my knees around my ears, uploading and transferring the days photos to multiple locations, and sharing info we’d discovered during the day as well.

We ran numerous beach clean ups along the way in Wales and Scotland; on the tip of the Gower Peninsula, at Tresaith (the first heritage coastline in Britain), outside Tenby (with its low-tide stranded boats), on the Ynyslas sand dunes, and on multiple lochs (Lyne, Long, Sween, Broom). Whilst at Brighouse Bay in southern Scotland, Claire and I focused solely on counting the strands of washed up rope from the fishing industry. We picked up over two thousand pieces between us, in a little under an hour! Terrible.

Volunteering on the road wasn't easy, and in hindsight I would've liked a few more weeks to really take our time, staying in spots for days rather than hours. But return to the ‘real world’ we must, with a further appreciation for how huge and diverse the world is, and a priceless collection of memories.

Now it’s time to work on my own country’s coastal problems – teaming up with the Australian Marine Conservation Society for the “fight for the reef” campaign, whilst taking the environmental message to all that can listen. 

To the passionate people we met at MCS, we thank you all for having us on board as honorary Sea Champions, and wish every single one of you the best in the fight to protect and save British waters from those that the waters have (again, ironically) protected for centuries.. Peace!!"

To read Jimmy's full story or peruse through a few more of his beautiful seaside photos pop on over to his blog It's Jimmy Nails

Here's a quick update from Jimmy 6 months on: "I'm now co-coordinating the Victorian branch of the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) down here, with heaps of events and our major campaign ticking along. It's been an amazing learning curve and experience the past six months. We've had a Rally For The Reef, dive shop talks, national park and marine protected area walk'n'talks, beach cleans, organising invasive species workshops. I'm loving it!"