Marine

Seaton is a maritime town. The majority of summer visitors are attracted to the town because of its coastal location. The marine ecosystem has an important role to play in interpreting the local environment and holds many interesting stories, has many rare and endangered habitats and animals, and will play an increasingly important role in monitoring climatic change.

The most powerful element of interpreting the marine environment is that you are exploring a place largely hidden from human eyes. The aesthetic quality of marine animals, combined with the newness of seeing them for the first time make them an ideal subject for interpretation.

The locally most significant marine interpretive strand is the Lyme Bay reefs. Not only are these very important ecologically, but they also demonstrate a positive conservation move through the voluntary exclusion zones. The reefs are the subject of a current conservation initiative - the Lyme Bay Project. The “out of sight out of mind” pitfall is all too easy to fall into with maritime conservation, but bringing these wonderful areas to people’s attention, while at the same time reassuring them that these areas are under positive conservation protection, is a good message of local conservation significance. Focussing interpretive attention on the marine conservation theme, which is so linked to Seaton, will bring significant partnership potential with the Devon Wildlife Trust.

The south coast of England is the area where new species are being recorded, as sea temperatures rise. The monitoring of sea temperatures and spread of new colonisers is an important tool in mapping the most serious environmental issue facing humanity, namely climate change. Messages of this global significance are not difficult to incorporate within the marine conservation message.

The sheer quantity of interesting and unusual animals that inhabit the marine environment makes its interpretation particularly rewarding. From the second largest fish in the sea visiting our shores – the basking shark, to rare and unusual sea fan corals Eunicella verucosa; newly discovered mantis shrimps to Mediterranean trigger fish, the seas of Seaton abound with fascinating stories. To expand upon one example – basking sharks. The link between the biennial appearances of these leviathans and the spring/autumn algal blooms is an interesting message, involving a large, charismatic species, issues of climate change, ecology, human history and wildlife conservation.