Marine Reserves

Like it or not, around the world many species of animals are seen as tradeable commodities – for things like food, fur, fashion or medicine. Of course we know that historically hunting animals for commercial gain has often been really bad news for the animals concerned. Just stop and think about some of the most recognisable big land mammals – things like tigers, elephants and rhinos – and it’s pretty evident what trade can do to even well-known beasts, pushing many of them to the very brink of extinction.

Something amazing is happening in Monterey Bay, California. The bay is a marine sanctuary, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The bay is home to an amazing array of wildlife: everything from cute, cuddly sea otters to prehistoric pelicans, from massive kelp forests to gigantic blue whales. But the big news is that BBC is kindly bringing all of this right into your living room with a massive live TV event called Big Blue Live.

If I said to you that the UK government was responsible for rare sea turtles, endangered sharks, tropical coral reefs and quite possibly more penguins than any other country, you might think I was talking about some aquariums or zoos. It’s certainly not what you think about in UK seas, especially at this grey time of year (though of course we do have visiting turtles, many shark species, cold water corals, and puffins as penguin-wannabes). But across the world the UK has ‘overseas territories’. They are relics of a turbulent past when flags were planted across the world, and mostly, these days, they are islands – like Bermuda, Pitcairn, and Ascension. So, in turn, the amazing wildlife in the seas around these islands is effectively ‘British’.

‘Shark’:  it’s an evocative and symbolic single syllable. Just the sound of the word conjures up a host of associated images, usually to do with menacing fins, teeth, and a certain cinematic soundtrack.  #SharkWeek ramps up the public awareness around sharks, but it’s also a chance to reconsider and revalue these iconic, and undoubtedly awesome, ocean creatures.