Sometimes facebook/meta washes up precious posts and nature sightings – glorious little evanescent moments of beauty and fragility, captured right by our feet.
WOOEE loves these small, evocative odes, shared via our social media posts and screens.
This one was posted by Geoff Berry during the massive east coast low in March 2022.
Widen your eyes and read on!
WOOEE saw this comment on the post.
It read like a poem and we asked permission to share it here:
I remember finding one on the beach as a child
I kept it for years in a shirt box
Later diving with my father
I’d watch them
Toni Wells
More about Weedy seadragons
‘ Weedy seadragons – Phyllopteryx taeniolatus – are found only in Australian coastal waters where they are most commonly found in a thin strip of shallow water along the coastline. Although they appear to be seaweed when drifting in the water column almost motionless, weedy sea dragons are actually bony fish. They are related to seahorses, pipefish, and seamoths.’
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/weedy_seadragon1
And here they are sashaying through the night gardens of the ocean in their courtship rituals
Weedy Seadragon facts & protected status :
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/75985/Weedy-seadragon-Primefact-161—final.pdf
https://australian.museum/learn/animals/fishes/weedy-seadragon-phyllopteryx-taeniolatus/
How will each increment of ocean warming impact the Weedy Seadragon? What will the changing frequency and severity of east coast lows mean for these extraordinarily beautiful marine animals on our Nature Coast ?
While close monitoring and more research is required in the face of declining numbers of the Weedy Seadragon, this is what we do know about the changes in ocean temperature and weather systems impacting their habitats:
As the main cause of extreme storms along the NSW coast, climate modelling predicts there may be more extreme low pressure systems in the warmer months, and fewer small to moderate low pressure systems in the cooler months.
“Other impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, will make coastal storms and floods even more damaging, as erosion and flooding will occur further up the shoreline, ” is the summation by the NSW Department of Environment.
And this raises concerns for the habitats of weedy seadragons –
” Seahorses and seadragons are at risk because of activities affecting their habitat, including development, pollution, fertilizer runoff, and increased water temperatures due to climate change.”
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/exhibits/tropical_pacific_gallery/conservation
High seas contributing to the recent significant NSW coastal erosion event, following weeks of intense storms and severe weather, were well captured in the new IMOS-OceanCurrent surface waves product (Figure 1). The BOM-NSW issued a severe weather warning on 9th Mar 2022 for damaging surf on the central and southern parts of the NSW coast (Figure 2), following the high waves generated from a low-pressure system/east coast low in the Tasman Sea. Significant wave heights of 5-6 m were recorded by wave buoys at Eden and Port Kembla (Figure 1a, purple arrows). Offshore, the low-pressure system generated even higher wave – heights up to 7 m
http://oceancurrent.imos.org.au/news.php
By Ferdinand Bauer, Reproduction in Public Domain, wikimedia
Phyllopteryx taeniolatus are our very special Weedy Seadragons – admire and love them and most of all protect them through action on climate change.
We can help the Weedy Seadragon through efforts at maintaining the health of kelp forest, sea meadows, and our shared ocean environment.
Here’s a great link just shared by the Nature Coast Marine Group :
And you can connect with and join NCMG here –
WOOEE_April 2022
