All at Sea in a Wild Wales
by Malcolm Smith
Walk acrfoss the bouncy, salt-sprayed turf on Skomer Island and its the ocean views or the carpet of sea pink flowers that are likely to catch your eye. You would never guess that half of the worlds population of one of the planets most enigmatic birds is, quite literally, under your feet. Dark chocolate and white, an estimated 160,000 pairs of Manx shearwaters breed here almost totally unseen. These grackle-sized adult birds make contact with land only to raise their single young in underground burrows, which they either dig themselves or purloin from rabbits. The young shearwaters summertime world is a subterranean one, to and from which their ocean-faring parents venture only under cover of darkness. To see them, you have to wait until dusk when flotillas of adult shearwaters gather on the sea beneath the islands treacherous, wave-gnarled slopes. Not until after dark, when there is no moonlightto avoid predatory great black-backed gullsdo hundreds of thousands of them fly up, stiff-winged, to find their very own young troglodyte using what seems like a discordant jumble of chuckling and mewing calls. The scene is hard to image: thousands of neighbors calling out to their homebound children and finding them.
Skomer, one of a small group of rocky islands off the cliff-lined coast of southwest Wales, is a National Nature Reserve that resounds all summer long to a cacophony of seabird calls. Veritable bird cities occupy the countless ledges of its skyscraper-high sea cliffs. For more than half a century now, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) has had an increasingly effective designation for protecting its most important habitats and species, but only on land down to the boundary of the low tide. Called Sites of Special Scientific Interest, such designations now cover more than ten percent of the land surface of Wales, ranging in size from thousands of hectares of rolling-heather moorland to tiny breeding bat colonies.
Giving similar legal protection to the UK's equally valuable seas, though, has lagged far behind. The UK's conservation agencies, such as the Countryside Council for Wales, were given powers in the 1960s to designate Marine Nature Reserves, but the process proved too bureaucratic. As a result, few were ever designated, and the small sea area around Skomer Island remains Wales' sole Marine Nature Reserve.
Then, as a result of the 1992 Rio earth Summit, the European Union conceived The Habitats Directive, which is mandatory for all EU member states. The directive promotes the maintenance of biodiversity, accounting for economic, social, cultural, and regional requirements with the goal of sustainable development. The conservation agencies in the UK responded, assiduously selecting the most important examples of those habitats and species, on land and at sea, specified by the directive. These would eventually become Special Areas of Conservation and be given protection.
Skomer's long standing as an National Nature Reserve has made it a rich refuge for thousands of chocolate and white guillemots, like miniature penguins; black and white razorbills; and vast clouds of dainty, silver-grey and white gulls called kittiwakes, which compete in discordant decibels for noise awards rather than for orchestral competence. Puffins, with their parrot-like scarlet and yellow beaks, waddle on shiny red feet out from their burrows like old men taking constitutional afternoon strolls.
While Skomer's copious sea-cliff ledges and underground burrows are essential breeding sites for a few months of the year, what sustains this impressive array of seabirds is the incredibly rich and varied cuisine provided by the surrounding sea. The shallow sea off the west and southwest coasts of Wales harbor a cornucopia of rocky- and sandy-seabed habitats and a plethora of marine species ranging from brightly colored corals and sponges to predatory, slate-blue lobsters and doe-eyed grey seals.
At Martin's Haven (the pretty cove you will find yourself in if you want the boat service across to Skomer Island), information displays in a former fisherman's cottage describe the nearby seabed. Dead man's fingers, a soft coral in hues of orange or cream; red, brown, or blue brittle stars, a starfish that can carpet parts of the seabed; and bloody Henrys, not a cocktail but a blood-red starfish found on seabed gravels, all abound around here.
You will read, too, of the cuckoo wrasse, a striking, foot-long, orange and blue fish. Of crab- and lobster-crunching trigger fish, with their rat-like teeth, a Mediterranean species that might visit these waters more frequently in the future, courtesy of climate warming. You may also learn of underwater kelp forests, where mud-brown seaweed fronds can grow to 12 feet tall, and so dense that World War II submarines hid in them to avoid enemy sonar!
"The wealth of these seas is due to a combination of factors," comments Mandy McMath, a senior marine biologist with the Countryside Council for Wales, the statutory conservation advisors to the government in Wales. "Off the southwest of Wales, warmer waters from the south meet colder waters from the Irish Sea. That, plus some nutrient-rich water upwelling in the area, supports a greater diversity of species and large numbers of [many of] them," she says.
Shoreline Surprises
Even if you are not into diving or snorkeling, this hidden undersea world can sometimes reveal enough of its secrets to whet your appetite. Walk along the miles of sea-rippled, golden syrup- colored sandy beaches on either side of Saundersfoot village and it's easy to get more than an inkling of that wonderworld beneath the waves.
Sharp-edged rocks protrude jaggedly from the sand and are home to an algae-grazing community of midnight blue mussels; tiny, near-white barnacles; and gorgeously shaped periwinkles, topshells, and dog whelks. They cling, tenaciously, to the sea-roughened rock that is, itself, impossible to see these shell-dwelling creatures. Even the miles of sea-smoothed sandy beach are not the lifeless desert it might at first appear. Olive-green shore crabs do sprints, on the lookout for a dead fish or a discarded sandwich to scavenge. Knife-edged razor shells and the curiously named sea potato themselves just under the surface.
When, in February 1996, the supertanker Sea Empress ran onto rocks, spilling more 70,000 tons of crude oil along 130 miles of this incredibly rich coast, these beaches were awash with the viscous, black poison. Rock pools had their life-supporting brine replaced with deadly, diesel-pungent oil. The toll on marine life, especially along the shore, where most of the oil ended up, was enormous.
Several thousand seabirds, mainly wintering common scoter ducks, guillemots, razorbills, and divers, were oiled and died. Populations of many crustaceans disappeared from some lengths of shore and were severely depleted on others. The one population of the rare cushion starfish declined from 150 known individuals to 13.
But, six years later, these rock pools abound once again with a wealth of plants and animals, a microcosm of what exists on much of the rocky seabed offshore. Today, the slimy green and brown seaweeds, the ruby-red blobs of jelly-like beadlet anemones, and the scuttling, orange-brown hermit crabs that peek out of their previously owned whelk shells combine to color the seascape. Seabird numbers and the cushion starfish have recovered. Nature, slowly but surely, has healed itself.
Dazzled by Dolphins
Increasingly, the wildlife that these seas support is attracting visitors. Take, for instance, the Victorian village of New Quay, built on a steep slope above a little sheltered harbor from which fishing and lobster-potting boats access the rich seas of Cardigan Bay.
On a dreary, wet winter's day rainfall, most of which falls in autumn and winter little village harbor and be reminded of that evocative Dylan Thomas description of "the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea" from his famous radio play, Under Milk Wood. Thomas and his wife, Caitlin, lived in New Quay in the 1940s, and many of the play's characters were derived from the village folk of the day.
Nowadays, apart from some part-time lobster potting, the fishing boats have metamorphosed into dolphin-spotting boats. Cardigan Bay has become famous for its resident population of bottlenosed dolphins. An estimated 130 individuals feed and breed in these shallow, food-rich waters. A fair number
It is not unusual to see a group of these eight- to twelve-foot-long, black or dark gray mammals with white undersides and protruding snouts cavorting in the dark harbor waters. Their speed-swimming, wave-breaching, diving, twisting, and turning routines seem like part of a choreographed display, perfected for the tourists who gather avidly above the harbor to watch.
Conservationists argue that the growing use of tourist boats will eventually drive the dolphins away, even though the boatmen stick to a voluntary code of behavior to minimize disturbance. As yet, there is no evidence of any impact.
Estuary Splendor
Dylan Thomas spent much of his short life in Laugharne, a pretty, estuary-side village that has stunning views across the tide-rippled mudflats of three estuaries dreamily from different directions to converge in the nearby sea.
Mudflats are revealed as lazy shallows recede with the slackening tide, and, together with extensive salt marshes, are host to some 35,000 waterfowl each winter. Fertile muds and nourishing seawater provide a rich habitat for molluscs and crustaceans—a smorgasbord for wintering birds.
There can be more than 13,000 noisy, black and white oystercatchers; large numbers of black-tailed godwits with their exceedingly long, red and black beaks; smaller waders like the gray-plumaged knot; and large numbers of duck, including delicate pintails and spade-beaked shovelers.
Other Welsh estuaries with their extensive mudflats, sandbanks, meandering river channels, and narrow creeks are equally important as winter soup kitchens for wading birds, ducks, and geese, which breed in the very north of Europe, but fly south to sit out the milder winter along Britain's west coast. Without the Gulf Stream, these estuaries, like their counterparts in the north of Europe, would be frozen solid all winter long. So the Gulf Stream doesn't just bring warmer water. It brings life.
In some of the estuaries, cockle harvesting has long been an important source of local employment. In the Burry Inlet, part of Carmarthen Bay, for instance, up to 55 people have been employed harvesting 3,500 tons a year, all raked and sieved by hand. But times have changed. Many cockle fisheries on the coast of south Wales have been closed down, the result of poisoning by an algal toxin. So far, no one is sure why the algae are proliferating, though the finger of suspicion points to nutrient runoff from farming and sewage.
Winter Births
Wales' west coast is a very different place in autumn when
the noisy breeding seabird colonies are gone. The Manx shearwaters
are at sea off the coast of South America; there is no bird
song from the bramble scrub on the steep, sea-facing slopes.
But there are compensations. From September through December, gray seals, numbering as many as 5,000 individuals, start to appear inshore. On inaccessible pebble beaches and tucked inside sea caves on the mainland and on many offshore islands, some 1,300 pups are born each year. They are ushered into a frenetic world all too fre-quently lashed by driving rain and biting winds.
After clambering down a very wet and dangerously steep slope last winter to one such boulder-strewn, shingle beach, I helped Mike Pilsworth of the West Wales Wildlife Trust to monitor, count, and mark all the pups that we could safely find.
It was a privilege to sit so close to a ten-day-old pup, its big, velvet-black eyes like dark moons contrasting with its white baby fur. It lay plump and languid in the non-stop drizzle, waiting to suckle milk from its mother when she next appeared. Its plaintive, almost baby-like cry echoed, haunting the rock-strewn cove.
But cuteness can be illusory. Get too close and a docile pup growls and snarls like a bulldog, its jaws wide open, globules of saliva dripping over its small, but needle-sharp, teeth. When they lurch awkwardly toward your boots to defend their territory, you quickly get the message: "Don't mess with me."
Farther along the slippery shingle were others, thinner and less well fed. In this harsh environment, death is an everyday occurrence. Up to a fifth of these beautiful pups never make it beyond weaning.
"We won't go too close to these," cautioned Mike as we came upon two seal cows, each nearly eight feet long. "They can be very aggressive if they feel cornered. They leave their pups on shore and come in to feed them four to six times a day. The pups are perfectly safe for hours on end," he adds.
Welsh gray-seal numbers have been increasing. Ultimately, their population is probably limited by the number of available breeding sites on the west coast. Most sites are already occupied. And while inshore fishermen are complaining about their numbers and the quantity of fish they devour, there are no calls for a cull. Not yet, anyway.
In the Swim
Estuaries like the Severn because its tidal range is the second largest in the world after Canada's Bay of Fundy twaite shad and allis shad, as well as for the parasitic sea and river lampreys. These species swim up the Severn Estuary and into its fresh-water rivers
A better-known fish also makes a similar tortuous journey. A decade or two ago, Welsh rivers like the Wye were famed for their Atlantic salmon populations. Not now. Changes in sea temperatures, air pollution (which causes the acidification of the upper reaches of many of their spawning rivers), and netsmen taking too many fish in the estuaries are some of the factors that have caused their numbers to plummet.
By contrast, other estuary and river dwellers are well on the road to recovery. Otters, which underwent massive declines in the 1960s and '70s as a result of river engineering and pollution, have recolonized most Welsh estuaries and rivers to thrive once more.
Much of the UK's efforts at conservation have been through habitat designations, such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. In fact, there is a marine-protection bill currently going through Parliament that is supported by the UK government and is intended to give the conservation agencies in the UK power to designate sea areas that are of national importance.
Sounds like a good move. But, these marine Sites of Special Scientific Interest, unlike their apparent forerunners on land, would be subject to government approval before they could be designated. Another key concern: they would not be able to control fisheries and some other potentially damaging activities, too. That's why the Countryside Council for Wales decided not to continue to support the bill.
But designating protected areas isn't the only game in town. Equally important on land are such measures as agri-environment schemes that pay farmers to de-intensify their agricultural management, re-create habitat and manage sustainably those habitats that survive, as well as providing better facilities for public use. Important, too, is the influence of government policy on land use, as well as advice as to how individuals, industry, and commerce can accommodate wildlife.
Similarly, while it is important to designate the most important places at sea, policies to achieve sustainable fisheries, reductions in pollution, safer practices in transporting hazardous cargoes by ship, and so on, will give the enormous wealth of wildlife in the UK's seas the protection it deserves.
Island of Living
Walking sections of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Trail is a good way to soak up the atmosphere of the west Wales coast. It snakes all of its 186 miles through yellow-flowered, gorse-clad cliff tops, along narrow roadways set low between wind-sheltering banks, and through damp valley pastures dotted yellow with wild irises.
En route you can hear sweet singing finches called linnets or the much harsher song of whitethroats, warblers that nest in scrub. Skylarks high above in the, hopefully, blue sky black crows with blood-red legs and beaks are called chough, once more common cliff-nesters than they are now. And a scimitar-winged peregrine, that lightning-fast flyer of a falcon, might put in an aerobatic display, too.
From much of the trail you can't miss the views, such as offshore islands and faraway rocky inlets, which are likely to include a supertanker or two at anchor waiting to enter the port of Milford Haven to discharge their valuable cargoes. One of these captivating islands is Grassholm miles out from the west coast.
In summer, half of it looks as if some giant has washed it white to make it show up better from a distance. It certainly does. But no cans of white paint have been brushed over Grassholm's sparsely vegetated slopes. The island looks half white because 35,000 pairs of gannets strikingly long, narrow, black-tipped wings numbered a mere handful.
To protect the colony, landing on the island is forbidden but boats get close enough for viewing. The boat trip is an assault on the senses. Miles downwind, you can't ignore the ripe, guano-and-brine odor of the massive colony, each pair of birds cheek by jowl with its neighbors.
Grating and grunting, the incessant, nearly deafening calls of the gannets drown out the throb of the boat's engine and the crash of the surf-laden waves. The birds put on an impressive diving display as, all around, they fold their wings and plummet vertically, like elongated paper arrows, into the heaving, blue-grey sea, all but taking your breath away, creating a potent and dramatic emblem for the incredible wildlife riches of these Welsh seas.
MORE! Special Areas of Conservation in Wales
—Malcolm Smith is Deptuy Chief Executive of the Countryside Council for Wales. He writes regularly in The Times and other national papers in the United Kingdom.
ZooGoer 31(4) 2002. Copyright 2002 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.
