Page 42 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #06

THESE DETERMINED CREATURES

HAVE INDEED CLAWED THEIR WAY
BACK FROM A NEAR WIPE-OUT.

the late winter and early spring. The males also migrate,
though their movement patterns are still unknown. So
the thought that Storm Emma could have hit during the
lobsters’ return from the deep was sobering.
The power of the storm was plain to see. It had literally
moved whole beaches and thousands of dismembered
starfish arms littered the shoreline. The seabed had taken a
pummelling and the easterly aspect of the planned dive site
meant that it would have taken the full force of the storm.
Who knew what scenes awaited us just offshore?
The day finally came in the last week of March, when
water temperatures were hovering just above 8°C– about
as cold as it gets for Cornish offshore waters. We had
been tracking a weather window and settled on a bitingly
cold morning when I joined a team of hardy volunteer
divers and underwater photographers looking to put their
recreational diving skills and experience to good use. We all
gathered on the deck of the Tiger Lilly, the CIFCA research
vessel, while Matt briefed us on the dive plan.

OUT OF THIS WORLD
Matt had a print-out of a sonar trace
of the dive site. The engine boilers
of the wreck looked like towering
stacks in the grainy black and white
image. It was like a scene from 2001:
A Space Odyssey, with not just one
but two imposing monoliths rising
up from the seabed. My overactive
imagination set to work… I couldn’t
Clockwise from top right: Jef Rotman/Alamy; Paul Kay/NHPA/Photoshot; WaterFrame/Alamy; Sue Daly/naturepl.com; Getty: John Yarrow
help but feel like an explorer about to
set foot on another planet.
The slow descent to the site
only added to the sense of
otherworldliness as the murky outline
of the boilers emerged. After a quick
‘buddy check’, we immediately set off
on our search. The wreck had been
chosen as this was where most of last
summer’s sightings came from.
Spiny lobsters can live 10–20
years, and possibly even up to 100
years. Over these long lifetimes
many exhibit a homing instinct,
returning to the same home ground
each year. So this seemed like a
reasonable place to begin our search.
Even so, we all knew to keep our of their bodies were tucked away. I moved back to take in + GET INVOLVED
expectations in check; there’s no such thing as a ‘dead the whole scene – it was like a towering skyscraper with
O Seasearch is a
cert’ when it comes to wildlife watching or surveying. flamboyant residents peeping at the windows.
scheme enabling
The ship’s boilers are covered, top to bottom, with rows Our survey counted 20 individuals, but could be just the recreational
of uniform holes machined into the metal sheets. After start. Encouraging signs point to this not being a fluke: divers to log their
the very first little peek inside one of these holes, I knew there are believed to be many other similar sites around sightings of
marine species:
we weren’t going to be disappointed. the Cornish coast. It seems that these determined creatures
www.seasearch.
In many cavities a spiny lobster had taken up residence. have indeed clawed their way back from a near wipe-out. org.uk
Since these animals are largely nocturnal, all that was visible The numbers aren’t dazzling, however, which means
was the tell-tale, spiky antennae poking out, while the rest this fledgling population is still vulnerable. If numbers
42 BBC Wildlife June 2018