Living Seas Cornwall

Living Seas Cornwall is home to some of the richest marine wildlife from tiny rare colourful corals to giant basking sharks, but our seas urgently need protecting. Cornwall Wildlife Trust runs an extensive marine conservation programme known as ‘Living Seas’. They work to protect Cornwall’s seas in three ways: collect data on marine wildlife, create awareness of the threats to marine life they campaign for better protection for our marine species and habitats. Living Seas Programme projects The Trust’s innovative Seaquest Netsafe Project is gathering data on cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) which will help develop strategies to protect them. The Trust gathers data on the marine seabed and species through Seasearch diving surveys. The Trust collects sightings of larger marine animals that visit our waters, such as dolphins, turtle and whales through the Seaquest Southwest project. As Cornwall is a renowned hot-spot for basking sharks, Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s ongoing Seaquest Basking Shark Project, is helping them to monitor and protect these wonderful sharks for the future. Cornwall sadly receives the highest numbers of dead dolphin strandings each year. In response to this they have established the Marine Strandings Network to record these animals and retrieve them for post mortem examination. The data collected through all of these projects is shared with the Finding Sanctuary project which is developing a network of Marine Protected Areas in the south west. The data is also used to create awareness about the threats to marine wildlife and to campaign for better protection. Our seas lack the legislation they need to adequately protect them. The Cornwall Wildlife Trust continue to put pressure on the Government to ensure the new Marine Act provides the necessary protection to give our marine wildlife the chance to recover and thrive.