May 2000
You may recall that in my August report of last year I mentioned that experiments in Scotland had been successful in producing genetically modified Atlantic Salmon, which were injected with growth hormones from another species, the American Chinook Salmon, and after a year they were four times as big as a normal salmon. Those fish were grown in a land based containment and the project was terminated after a year, and all the fish were destroyed because of environmental concerns. In America now, they are about to put on the market Salmon produced in the same way, fish that have grown to four times the size of their unmodified siblings. The report I heard did not say anything about land based containment for the production of these fish and concern being expressed by environmental groups in America suggest that there could be escapes which may interbreed with normal stocks with devastating effects. Surely the way ahead should be traditional fish farming; one farm in a Scottish Sea Loch is already producing 200,000 tones of fish annually, and there must be many suitable sites for further farms, not only in Scotland but also on a smaller scale in Cornwall. Fish farming is not a new enterprise, the Japanese have been particularly successful with this technique for decades, some of their farms were producing 20,000 tons of Tuna, and 13,000 tons of Eels yearly, back in the 1960s, and they were also producing 400 tons of prawns. They must have vastly improved their output in the last 40 years. On April 4th a Common Dolphin became stranded in shallow water in Hayle harbour, the R.S.P.C.A. and the Gweek rescue team were called and they collected it for release. A vet examined it and pronounced it fit for release and it was taken to Marazion, because the sea was too rough at Hayle. The dolphin swam off without any problem of trying to re-beach, which sometimes occur. In the distant past man has had peculiar ideas about nature, for instance there was the quaint old myth that Barnacle Geese hatched from barnacles, hence the names Barnacle Goose and Goose Barnacles. As divers you will have seen dozens if not hundreds of Sea Cucumbers on the sea floor, but if one day you see a fish being ejected by a sea cucumber like Holothuria forskali, do not think for one moment that a sea cucumber is giving birth to a fish. Some species of pearlfish like Echinodon drummondi take refuge inside the body of sea cucumbers, entering via the anus, sometimes feeding on the reproductive organs, and they are liable to sudden ejection if the sea cucumber decides to turn out its guts. There has been only four sightings of Bottlenose Dolphins during April, a single one was seen in Plymouth Sound at the western end of the breakwater on the 2nd, and the other three sightings were all on the north coast, each time of three dolphins and so they could have been the same pod moving along the coast from Carbis Bay on the 21st, Hellsmouth on the 23rd and Newquay on the 24th. Several Basking Sharks were seen from the Scillonian on the way to the Scillies on the 22nd and the 24th. Each day it was at 10a.m. so they had remained in the same area for a couple of days. Another was found in Penzance Dock on the 28th and the gates were opened at high tide to allow it to escape. A pod of 8 Risso's Dolphins were seen off Peninnis Head in the Isles of Scilly on the 27th.
Conservation Officer: Raymond Dennis