GreyShuck

After 40 years, intertidal seagrass has grown in the Helford River, marking a breakthrough in Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Seasalt’s restoration efforts.

The Helford River has seen a glimmer of green hope. For the first time in over 40 years, native intertidal seagrass has successfully regrown in its waters—thanks to the collaborative efforts of Seasalt and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, now in their fourth year of the Seeding Change Together project.

This pioneering initiative is exploring low-carbon, low-cost methods to restore seagrass habitats in Cornwall’s estuaries – ecosystems vital to ocean health.

Technology that monitors birdsong as part of conservation efforts is to be rolled out across Shropshire.

The Green Box Project involves recordings via wireless boxes operated by solar panel. Recordings are uploaded to the cloud, where birds are then identified by AI.

It is hoped the collected data could support conservation planning and contribute to national biodiversity databases.

Experts are warning of an unusually high number of jellyfish in UK seas this summer. These are the ones out there

A number of bioluminescent plankton have been spotted off the coast of Cornwall.

Bioluminescent plankton are small creatures floating in the sea that have the ability to emit light when disturbed by a predator or motion.

Visitors to Kynance Cove managed to catch a glimpse of the rare sight last weekend.

Thomas Winstone was visiting the area from Wales with a friend, attempting to photograph a milkyway through the "clear Cornish skies", but then stumbled across the Plankton on Sunday night.

A project is underway to investigate what whales are eating off Scotland’s west coast by examining the make-up of their poop! We are delighted to be part of the team - led by Dr Conor Ryan - collecting samples, armed and ready to scoop from the deck of our research vessel, Silurian. Read more about the project below…

Spirits have been high among whale enthusiasts around The Minch in recent years, as larger whale species like fin and humpback whales have been settling in the region. While the smaller minke whale has been commonly seen for many years, the arrival of their larger cousins raises questions about what is sustaining their enormous appetites.

The first farmer-led programme to vaccinate badgers against tuberculosis is beginning in Cornwall with an aim to prevent transmission of the disease to cattle.

The programme is significant because farmers and scientists have long been at loggerheads over the culling of badgers as a way to control TB. The three-year trial will start with 70 farms and involve farmers trapping, testing and vaccinating badgers, with training provided by scientists. An earlier pilot study of the approach showed TB rates in badgers fell from 16% to zero in four years.

TB can devastate cattle herds and more than 20,000 infected cattle were slaughtered in the last year in England. The badger cull started in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 badgers but has been highly controversial.

Tourist discovers ‘extinct’ jellyfish while rock-pooling in Outer Hebrides Thistle-shaped Depastrum cyathiforme was last seen in France in 1976, but has now been found on South Uist

The distinctive jellyfish was feared globally extinct after being last spotted in Roscoff, northern France, in 1976.

But a holidaymaker who was rock-pooling on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides found four of the creatures, which attach themselves to rocks rather like anemones, and took what turned out to be the first ever photographs of the species, previously only known from historic drawings and paintings.

A 10,000-acre estate in the Highlands has been awarded special European status recognising its genetic diversity of tree species.

Parts of the juniper and silver birch woodland at Trees for Life's Dundreggan rewilding centre in Glenmoriston have been classed as Gene Conservation Units.

A spokesperson for the conservation charity said the "unusually wet location" of juniper and the "extreme westerly location" of silver birch have helped make the tree populations unique.

Yorkshire Water has been ordered to pay more than £900,000 after polluting a watercourse with millions of litres of chlorinated water, causing the death of hundreds of fish.

Sheffield Magistrates' Court heard how the firm's Ingbirchworth Water Treatment Works, near Barnsley, discharged intermittently into the freshwater watercourse linking Ingbirchworth and Scout Dike reservoirs for almost a month.

District Judge Tim Spruce said Yorkshire Water had shown a high degree of negligence, resulting in "a prolonged and catastrophic loss of aquatic life".

A unique stretch of coastline has been given £250,000 to protect its marine life.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded the money to Cumbria Wildlife Trust to highlight the important species living in Allonby Bay.

In 2023 the site was designated as England's first inshore Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA).

A nature reserve has recorded its largest number of fledglings of a threatened bird species in half a century.

RSPB Minsmere, on the Suffolk coast, counted at least 205 sandwich terns chicks this summer - the most at the site since 1974.

Senior site manager Nick Forster said that during the breeding season the birds had a "striking head plumage" which he felt made "them look like they've got Beatle haircuts".

A colony of 50 water voles has been released into the wild in Surrey, where the species has been locally extinct for 20 years.

The voles, an endangered species, were bred in captivity at the Wildwood Trust in Kent, which specialises in breeding the mammals.

They were released into the Chamber Mead wetlands in Epsom, created over the past two years to filter sewage pollution and other run-off out of a local stream before it enters the Hogsmill River.