NEWSLETTER Issue 2 February 2005 Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau Special Area of Conservation (SAC) This is the second newsletter for the Special Area of Conservation called Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau. Great News! Royal Society Project: Great news, in December 2004 the European A project with Tywyn Secondary School to raise Commission designated the suite of candidate SACs in awareness about their local environment has just the UK as fully designated SACs. As policy in Wales finished. The project involved profiling the Dyfi was to treat candidate SACs as fully designated SACs estuary by taking measurements of salinity, this won’t mean any major changes in the way things temperature, depth, creatures etc at different points operate. But formally it means that this site is now a along the estuary. The students ended up with a fully fledged SAC! number of profiles of the estuary to help them determine why the different creatures that they found Action Plan Review: live in specific areas of the estuary. This gave the A review of the Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau SAC Action Plan students a clear picture of the estuary and an idea of its has been undertaken to ascertain what stage of dynamic nature. The students work is displayed at the implementation the plan has reached and if it needs school. updating. The results of the review were encouraging, 5% of actions have been completed, 10% are in Summer Events: progress, 74% are classed as ongoing and 11% showed Many events took place during the summer of 2004 to no progress. Many issues came to light during this raise awareness of local marine wildlife. Many marine review and are currently being looked into. For a copy events were carried out and were well attended. Many of the review please contact the SAC Officer. birds were spotted during the Seawatch event at Uwchmynydd as well as a grey seal swimming amongst the rocks. Many interesting creatures were also found Wildlife update! at the rock pool safari held at Aberdesach, including o A large group of nine Risso’s dolphins with two calves colourful anemones, velvet swimming crabs and were seen off Bardsey Island during summer 2004. butterfish to name but a few! Entries for the sand o The harbour porpoise continue to be the most common sculpture competition at Black Rock Sands were cetacean stranded along our coastline. 120 were fantastic. The winners created a dramatic seahorse stranded in 2004, with 25 of these killed by decorated with shells, which earned them an array of bottlenose dolphins. It is still unknown why marine goodies. Similar events have been organised for th th bottlenose dolphins attack the harbour porpoise but this years Wales Biodiversity Week (June 11 -19 ) – theories include competition for food. please contact the SAC Officer for details. o We are eagerly awaiting the return of Wales’ first breeding pair of Ospreys. They have spent the winter Did you know? months in West Africa but we are hopeful that they • That it’s the male pipefish that give birth to live young! will return to their home near Porthmadog in the next • An octopus can squeeze through a hole as small as a 10p few weeks. We are crossing fingers that they are piece! successful during the breeding season this year after • Many species of fish can change sex! their chicks perished last year when their nest • That one of the ingredients used in ice cream comes collapsed. from seaweed! For further information regarding the Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau SAC please contact: Alison Edwards (SAC Officer) Countryside and Access, Gwynedd Council, council Offices, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 1SH. Tel: 01286 679381 E-mail: [email protected] (Illustrations courtesy of English Nature) This newsletter is produced on behalf of the Relevant Authorities for the Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau SAC: Ceredigion County Council, Countryside Council for Wales, Dŵr Cymru, Environment Agency Wales, Gwynedd Council, North Western & North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee, Powys County Council, Severn Trent Water, Snowdonia National Park Authority, Trinity Light House. .