Piel Channel / Roa Island Surveys

Past Surveys

A cursory glance at the channel may make you think that it is a rather uninteresting, murky stretch of water. It certainly can be murky! However there is a surprising wealth of life in there. The first survey that we have data for was undertaken by J Clare and D Jones in 1968. Lancashire MCS last did a major survey of the Roa Island Channel in 1991 & 1992 (see figure 1 below). There have been other surveys in the area, for instance off Peil and Walney Islands in 1997. The 1991/2 survey found 149 species, not including fish or algae (seaweeds). This mass of life is due to the strong tidal currents sweeping in and out of the channel twice every day, bringing the billions of small food items that are the basis of the food chain here.

Figure 1 - chart of transects from 1991/2 Lancashire MCS Survey - courtesy of Ron Crosby

Detail of transect 3 (click to see a larger version)
courtesy of Ron Crosby

This Year’s Survey

Lancashire MCS try to dive this area regularly, although conditions are often not ideal, and dive time is restricted to “slack water”, when the tide is changing direction, but we haven't done any serious surveys in the area since 1997. We would like to see if there are any differences in the life present here that may have changed without being noticed over the years. So we have looked back to the past surveys and identified the key species we are most interested in, and we will be making detailed surveys of small areas of seabed to get a general idea of species present and using video and stills cameras for images to examine post-dive.

If all goes well we will be sending our results to Seasearch, a project for volunteer sports divers run by the MCS and other interested organisations, the aim of which is to map out the various types of sea bed found in the near-shore zone around the whole of the Britain and Ireland and record what lives in each area, establishing the richest sites for marine life, the sites where there are problems and the sites which need protection.

Links
Follow the links below for photos of some of the life present here -

April 2006

June 2006

May 2009