The director of the Seahorse Trust has warned against moves which may see the UK ’ s two seahorse species unprotected by law . Neil Garrick-Maidment has warned that leaving seahorses off the E & C Act will make a nonsense of the work being achieved with Marine Protected Areas .

England ’ s Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 has protected seahorses despite the absence of firm data on the species , which are notoriously difficult to track and study . Now the Act is under a periodical review , which is following the UK ’ s IUCN Red List rather than the previous list of endangered species .

“ Seahorses are rare ,” Mr Garrick- Maidment said . “ There is no evidence their numbers are increasing and that they should be taken off the list . However , because of a lack of data they will not be included as a protected species because somebody decided it would be a good idea to change the criteria for protecting our native species .” He has sent Seahorse Trust data to English Nature in the hope of persuading them to uphold the protected status of UK Seahorses .

PHOTO : SEAHORSE TRUST

While performing my daily scroll through the world of Twitter the other day , I came across a post simply asking : “ What ’ s your favourite shark ?” Underneath , one response that caught my eye said something along the lines of “ Not sure if it qualifies as a shark , but I ’ m obsessed with the bowmouth guitarfish ”.

This question of ‘ what is a shark ’ comes up quite a lot in our world . It ’ s fed , I think , by the focus on a narrow group of typical shark species that hog the limelight in the public consciousness . Sharks are actually a pretty diverse group . If you include the skates and rays ( which we do ), then you ’ ve got over 1,200 species . And counting . On average , two species a month are discovered and added to the list .

Sharks are basically a ‘ special ’ group of fish , united by their bendy bones , gill slits and tooth-like scales . They also share the habit of being somewhat slower and more sparing in producing young than their bony cousins . While this key fact sets the group apart , particularly in their ability to cope with being fished , their diversity is just as important in conservation terms . Sharks differ in size , shape , colour , speed , habitat , food preference and reproduction . The list goes on . These differences determine how species might be put under pressure , how resilient they are to different threats and what action is most appropriate for safeguarding the species .

From a conservation perspective it ’ s impossible to focus on all 1,200 + species at once . The IUCN Red List is the most reliable science-based approach to capturing these differences and setting priorities for action . The first global Red List Assessment in 2014 , estimated that a quarter of sharks were threatened with extinction . We anxiously await a follow up to this assessment , due this year . It ’ s not expected that this figure will have improved . So , there ’ s much to be done and we need to focus on those species in most need .

Which brings me back to the bowmouth guitarfish – which , technically speaking is a ‘ shark-like ray ’. The guitarfish have been assessed as one of the most threatened groups of sharks around . And its home – the Mediterranean Sea – is possibly the worst place in the world to be a shark . Fisheries large and small feed a diversity of markets across a mosaic of countries . Over the past few years , we ’ ve been bringing together groups from across the region to enact a plan to protect angel shark species that share the ‘ most threatened ’ podium . And this year , we ’ ve launched a follow-up project to address Mediterranean guitarfish fisheries and trade .

Being focused , setting priorities , working collaboratively . That ’ s our recipe for making sure that the number of shark species keeps going up . And , in the meantime , let ’ s celebrate the sharks that people don ’ t know about , as well as the ones they do . www . sharktrust . org

41