Seashells, seashells on the sea shore..

[hope]

The Enviromental Cost Of Collecting Seashells

It's a normal part of any holiday, head for the beach, pick up a few seashells and take them home as keepsakes,
but multiply this innocent activity by millions of holiday makers and we have a big problem.

The number of beachcombers who are pocketing seashells is on the increase, and the environmental effects could range from erosion to fewer building materials for bird nests.

Seashores remain the most alluring tourist destinations and visitors often leave their mark by camping, driving
and trampling on beaches, but few scientists have thought to investigate whether seashell collection might be
destructive as well, these lovely beach tokens play an important role in ecosystems, algae take shelter in shells,
birds use them to build nests, and hermit crabs carry them as armour.

From 1978 to 1981, a research team surveyed seashells on Llarga Beach in Spain, then returned in 2008 to 2010,
checking for the three most common. 'Bivalve' species, in the intervening time, the beach hadn't seen many
changes in urban development, fishing activity, weather or waves, but the number of tourists had tripled.

The number of seashells was almost three times lower in the second round of surveys, from 1978-81, the researchers spotted an average of 1,506 seashells per transect, in 2008-10, that fell to 578 seashells per transect.

In addition, the team also collected records of tourists visits from town hall reports and nearby hotels, the more tourists arriving in the area in a given month, the fewer seashells the researchers found.



The number of shells from three major 'Bivalve' species found in the beach per transect in 1978-1981(top) and
2008-2010 (bottom).

Seashell declines could be even be worse at popular beaches, Llarga Beach is not a highest-tier tourist destination, the shells are neither attractive to professional shell collectors nor spectacular enough to attract the attention of every casual beachcomber.

Since tourists arrivals around the world have reached about a billion per year, the disappearance of seashells could be a global problem.

[hope]

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[Redbeck]

Thank you Hope, for highlighting yet another important element in the mission to preserve the vital chain of eco-balance upon our precious planet.

Shells perform a diverse spectrum of environmental functions: they help to stabilise beaches and anchor seagrass; they provide homes for creatures such as hermit crabs and a retreat for small fish; they are gathered by shorebirds to build nests; and as they break down, they provide nutrients to sand-dwelling organisms as well as those that build their own shells.

The potential detrimental environmental impacts caused by shell depletion, almost certainly include habitat changes, but researchers believe that these changes might well be ‘multiple’. Impact headings include: increased beach erosion, dwindling calcium carbonate from recycled shells and a decline in diversity and abundance of animals and plants that depend on shells, such as crabs, small fishes, algae and seagrass.



In the case of destinations with high tourism traffic or those that are home to especially rare or beautiful shells, experts believe it may be prudent to create laws stipulating how many shells an individual is allowed to remove from a beach. As an example, they point out that the Bahamas already has specific rules in place limiting the number of shells tourists can remove from the country.

Meanwhile, in more low-key locations such as Llarga beach mentioned in Hope’s original post, a public education campaign could prove a better strategy to discourage shell removal. Much the same approach national parks have adopted to encourage visitors not to pick wildflowers or remove animals in their ‘Leave No Trace’ programme, could also be applied to beaches, where visitors could be advised that sunset walks are considered best recorded in memory, poetic form or photographs as opposed to souvenir shells.