Treasuring Coasts: How Shells Protects Marine Life
Beachcombing may be popular, but it’s not really sustainable. Sand and pebbles are on beaches for a reason (they prevent coastal erosion, and shells in particular house small creatures from hermit crabs to insects. Even ‘crabbing’ can cause harm to injured creatures.
Beaches are habitats first, scenery second.
It’s actually illegal to remove sand and pebbles from beaches (also don’t remove driftwood, as again it provides essential habitats for wildlife).
At the coast, keep away from nesting birds and never walk on sand dunes. Learn how to keep dogs safe by the seaside (check beach bans before travel).
Leave seaweed alone
Harvesting seaweed (without knowing what you are doing) can harm shrimp habitats. Experts just ‘give seaweed a haircut’, without removing the roots.
Keep dogs away from seaweed fronds. They can expand in the stomach, once dry.
Driftwood gives insects places to live
Driftwoods creates shade and damp spots in hot weather. On some beaches, birds rest near it, and seedlings can take hold around it. What looks dead can still be busy.
Something likely lives in nearly everything
Whether it’s a tiny creature living inside a shell, a hermit crab living inside a bigger shell, or even nesting materials for birds, usually things on the beach are there for a reason, and should be left alone.
Shells (even fragments) prevent erosion on coasts, by helping to stabilise the sand and shore, and are made from calcium carbonate, which breaks down over time to form new sand, which re-enters the ocean’s nutrient cycle, for new shells to form.
Algae and sponges often attach themselves to shells, and these provide food and shelter for other creatures, not when they are displayed on your mantelpiece.
In fact, in many countries it’s illegal to take anything from the beach (in Italy, you’ll have a policeman with a gun after you, with an official warning).
And although it’s not so well-known in the UK, we have the Coast Protection Act 1949, which also forbids removing sand, pebbles and shells from public beaches. In Florida, if you remove the queen conch shell, you could go to jail.
If you would never kill a live animal for a souvenir, then don’t take shells from beaches or shops, as they often are home to living creatures.
What about sea glass?
Sea glass is broken bottle litter washed smooth by the waves, to create jewellery. As long as it’s not disturbing habitats, this is okay used to make beautiful jewellery. Your earrings may have been a pirate’s beer bottle from hundreds of years ago. Shiver me timbers!
Why are beaches sandy or pebbly?
It just depends on the beach. Cliff areas have stronger higher waves, so more pebbles. Sandy beaches tend to have gentler waves. The colour of sand depends on what it’s made from (iron oxide makes sand brown, Caribbean coral makes sand white or pink).
We’ve all heard of starfish and know what they look like. But are they exactly, and how can we help them? Let’s find out!
Starfish (also called ‘sea stars’) are fascinating marine mammals, often in rockpools and coastal waters, including England. They can regenerate lost arms and have a very unusual eating habit, in that they turn their stomachs inside out to consume prey. Having no brain or blood, they are actually echinoderms (not fish). Like sea urchins and sea cucumbers.
But they are living creatures, that eat clams and mussels by pulling the shells apart, and dissolving the prey into ‘soup’ to eat. They can see in all directions, due to having eyes at the end of each arm! And use special receptors to smell prey, as they have no noses..
They move using hyraulic pressure, using hundreds of tiny tube feet under their arms, and some even are born males, and turn into female as they get older! Some species can live for up to 35 years.
How to help beautiful star fish
Starfish do no harm, and it’s important we protect them as like all marine creatures, they are risk from human interference. Mostly from people removing them from the water, to sell them as ‘dried star fish souvenirs’. So never buy them in shops.
If you find a starfish stranded on the sand, gently move it to the water (if it’s attached to a rock, leave it as it is using its feet to ‘suction to a rock’ and waiting for the tide, and you could harm it, if you pull it away. As long as it looks like the sea is going to come in soon, it should be okay.
If it looks like the water can’t cover it, try to use some water or a shell or small shovel, to gently prise it away without harm, so it can return to the sea, in order to survive. But be careful not to harm or pull its feet away harshly. Just removing a star fish from the water can harm its water vascular system.
If you see anyone removing or harming starfish, report it to local environmental authorities.
It’s illegal so you can report it to RSPCA, British Divers Marine Life Rescue or as wildlife crime (anonymous through Crimestoppers).
Leave seaweed alone (also not safe near dogs)
England has over 600 species of seaweed, though you won’t see many, as most live under the sea. Although seaweed can be hand-harvested in small quantities for various uses, its real purpose is to provide shelter and nursery habitats for marine creatures.
Seaweed absorbs nitrogen and phosphorus from run-off, to help prevent ocean pollution. Unless you know what you are doing, don’t harvest seaweed yourself (experts just ‘give it a haircut’ without disturbing the roots). As one person wrote ‘It’s seaweed to you, but the universe to a shrimp!)
Keep dogs away from seaweed, as they often like to play with the fronds or even eat it. But as well as being salty, wet seaweed expands in the stomach as it dries. lso don’t walk on seaweed yourself (to protect it, and to prevent slipping over).
Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust has a good guide to the main species of English seaweed. The most common are:
- Bladderwrack (this has a ‘bubble wrap’ appearance and provides habitat for many ocean creatures).
- Sugar kelp is named due to the white powder residue left behind (its other name is Poor Man’s Weather Glass, as people use to hang dried fronds outside to predict whether rain was on the way, depending if they stayed dry or not).
- Sea lettuce does indeed look like lettuce leaves, and is used to make Welsh laver bread.
- Carrageen is a reddish seaweed, often used in vegan gelatine alternatives, to set puddings.
