Birthday on the Welsh Barrier Reef

At Skomer Marine Nature Reserve much of our work is ruled by the weather.  Of course in God’s own county of Pembrokeshire this is not normally a problem (honest!), but even so it was a great relief to have good weather for our twentieth birthday celebrations.  All the more important given that our 50 or so guests would be entertained ‘al-fresco’ rather than cram everyone into our small (but perfectly formed) office at Martin’s Haven.

Skomer MNR enjoys its twentieth anniversary

Iolo Williams was on form as guest speaker and was able to speak from his experience of diving and snorkelling in the MNR.

Iolo Williams enjoys a dive at Skomer

He referred to the years he spent visiting Skomer to study its birds and admitted that his recent introduction to the underwater world had made him realise that until then he’d been “looking at Skomer with one eye shut”.

The anniversary has also been a fascinating insight into the work that our PR staff do with the media. 

I would never have thought 19 years ago when I first started with CCW that the MNR would make the centre pages of the Sun, let alone the pages of the Palestine Telegraph!

And the reason for this popularity? 

Every two years we run a photographic competition for pictures taken in the MNR.  This not only gives us some wonderful images to illustrate our public talks with, but can also provide important records of species we haven’t seen in the Reserve.

Competition winner - Cuckoo wrasse by Tim Moran

For instance a species of sea-slug previously unrecorded in Wales turned up in one photograph. 

The images are so good that the media have deemed Skomer the UK equivalent of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and several national papers have taken up the story despite other minor distractions like the general election.

Until next time readers, when we’ll be looking a little further at sea slugs – the butterflies of the underwater world.

See also
Sea change at Skomer Island’s underwater reserve
The Palestine Telegraph’s article on Skomer’s ongoing work to protect marine wildlife.  The Telegraph  is the first newspaper based out of the Gaza Strip. Its staff is composed of Palestinians and international volunteers, both professional journalists and “citizen journalists”.