Alicia Shephard was walking along the bank of a Cornish estuary when she spotted something in the water. It was a long-snouted seahorse – only seven have previously been sighted in the region in the past 10 years.
“I was looking into the tideline when I noticed something I didn’t entirely recognise floating in the water so I went for a closer look, which is when I spotted the fin of the seahorse flickering and discovered the seahorse anchored to a piece of seaweed,” says Shephard, Nature Recovery Officer at Cornwall Council.
Shephard enjoys taking slow walks and looking out for the wonders of nature. “It's a running joke that a walk with me always takes twice as long because I love stopping to see what species are around,” she says.
A rare thing
Long-snouted seahorses (Hippocampus guttulatus) are one of two seahorse species that can be found in the UK – the other being short-snouted seahorses.
They live in shallow coastal waters, lagoons and estuaries. According to the Wildlife Trusts, they “are pretty poor swimmers, relying on their prehensile tail to cling onto seaweed and seagrass to stop themselves being swept away.”
Shephard immediately knew she’d found something special. “I never expected to see one because I knew how rare they were,” she says. But when she logged her sighting on the Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (ERCCIS) she was astounded at just how rare: only seven sightings had been reported over the last 10 years.
“To have such a close and unexpected encounter is unbelievable,” says Shephard, who was particularly surprised to stumble upon the animal without snorkelling or scuba diving. “I would recommend everyone takes time to walk a little slower and really observe what’s around them because that’s how we spot the wonderful,” she says.
Seahorses are protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act which means you’re not allowed to touch or handle them without a wildlife license. Shephard also recommends that people record their sightings on ERCCIS as the database helps research efforts as well as informing conservation measures in the area. “That goes for all sightings, not just the rare but the common ones as well,” she says.
Shephard is going to be keeping her eyes open in future in the hope of more special sightings, saying “I think my walks might be about to get a whole lot slower.”
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Words: Melissa Hobson