The BBC is at it again. Today its website features an article with the heading “Why our changing weather could be bad for seahorses”. As so often seems to be the case, it’s yet another piece that seeks to make a story about climate change where one doesn’t exist. The opening paragraphs (which offer no evidence at all in support of their claims) seek to instil a sense of worry (if not despair) in readers of the article:
The increasing chances of more severe storms could put the South’s seagrass meadows at risk.
Work to recover the precious habitat at sites such as Studland Bay in Dorset has seen encouraging signs of species, including seahorses, returning.
But potential damage to the seagrass due to shifting weather patterns could put that recovery under threat.
While the unique marine flowering plant can help reduce the erosion of the seabed in shallow water it is vulnerable to stormy weather.
The reality, of course is rather different. The article links to another BBC article, with the more honest and accurate headline advising that “Rare seahorse numbers reach post-pandemic high”. As the earlier article makes clear, the threat to seahorses is from people, and their activities, not from stormy weather that may (or may not) be increasing:
The absence of boats and people in Studland Bay during lockdown meant seahorse numbers peaked in 2020 but quickly diminished when restrictions were eased….
…Mr Garrick-Maidment said: “We worked out that the site was holding 46 seahorses then but sadly, within weeks of lockdown unlocking, the seahorses were gone.”
That was last year. Only last month yet another BBC article was headlined “Legal warning after rise in seahorse disturbances”. From this article we learn:
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) said it was stepping up efforts to inform people of the law after an increase in reported incidents, both accidental and deliberate….
…A MMO spokesperson said: “We have seen an increase in incidents where people have unintentionally encountered seahorses whilst in the water, or whilst crabbing.
“We’ve also seen people diving or snorkelling with the likely specific intention to film or photograph seahorses.
“This sort of intentional activity is likely to disturb seahorses, would potentially constitute an offence and would require a wildlife licence.”
MMO head of marine wildlife conservation Jess Churchill-Bissett said: “We can understand the fascination people have with our native seahorse species, however, they are incredibly vulnerable and fragile marine animals that are easily disturbed by human activities….”…
Back to today’s BBC piece, and we are told (without links or evidence) that:
Climate experts are predicting the UK could see winter storms increasing in number and intensity….
Next we are treated to a sentence to the effect that the Met Office has warned that the strong El Niño that is currently developing is likely to be the strongest in living memory. Then we are told that easterly winds can cause problems for the sea grass that the seahorses rely on during the breeding season. The effect (perhaps also the intention) is to link the natural El Niño event to existing and speculative future climate change.
Yet the reality (as the article concludes by acknowledging) is that “at Studland the signs are encouraging” for seahorses. The three BBC articles linked together demonstrate that human activity is the main problem for seahorses. Removing it from the equation sees them thriving. Even Bob Ward (Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science), who is probably as concerned about climate change as anyone, has acknowledged in an article in May last year about “Dorset’s Shifting Shores” that “…there is currently no evidence of a trend in windspeeds during storms that hit Britain...”.
The Seahorse Trust has carried out a huge amount of work at Studland Bay, as can be seen by reading its special newsletter about it. Anchor scar reduction is rapidly ongoing, and in what seems to be direct correlation, the numbers of seahorse sightings there are increasing. A handy graph at the top left of page 7 of the newsletter demonstrates this very clearly.
So come on BBC. Stick to reporting the facts. Stop speculating wildly about climate change. Celebrate good news about nature. And most of all, stop trying to scare us.
The seahorse is on several parts of Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is protected against taking, etc, and disturbance:
Section 9.
The penalty is up to 6 months in jail and/or a fine. Naturally people are generally quite thoughtless and often go buzzing up and down in their mechanical toys with no thought to the damage they are doing. Well, there are ways of marking off areas from which marine traffic is excluded. Rocket science, it ain’t. A sign on the beach would remove the defence of “unintentional.”
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I doubt the public are aware of this, I wasn’t, has anyone ever had “6 months in jail and/or a fine” ?
Badger baiting springs to mind as a possible example.
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“Will you won’t you will you won’t you will you join the dance?
H/T The Mock Turtle.
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Dougie: for that there is the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which does have similar penalties. I do think conservation legislation is not enforced as often as it should be.
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Studland Bay specifically has a sewage/storm overflow issue? I doubt the vast amount of untreated sewage which gets dumped there is helping much, unless of course a Seahorse’s diet consists of mainly sh1t in which case it should be doing rather well 🤨
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“‘Incredibly encouraging’: healing the scars of traditional anchors in Dorset’s seagrass meadows
Eco-moorings help to restore seagrass in just five years, boosting sealife such as seahorses, eels and crabs”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/21/seagrass-eco-mooring-dorset-seahorses
The article says:
But it also says:
Which suggests that the so-called climate emergency has absolutely no impact on seagrass or, as a minimum, that direct disturbance by human activities far exceeds the impact of climate change.
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Yet another article from the BBC on this subject (how many do they need?):
“Seahorse habitats ‘healing’ thanks to eco-moorings”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqrm90n3m90po
Amazing, so obviously nothing to do with climate change…..Not so quick!
That embedded link in the reference to climate change isn’t justification for the claim at all; rather it’s a link to another BBC article earlier this year which I referred to in my piece above. This is the reality:
Recovery, despite climate change. Perhaps climate change isn’t the issue, BBC.
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Mark, there are two species of seahorse around the coast of the UK. Here is the distribution of one of them (Hippocampus hippocampus), from the Ocean Biodiversity Information Service (OBIS). The other is similar. Of course, the BBC is desperate to shoehorn climate alarm into everything. But it got tiresome a long time ago. Note that the density of records reflects survey effort, as well as abundance.
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Note also an apparent data curation error in the easternmost record.
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