Four amazing days of snorkel training with @seawilding down in Craignish
We’ve learned so much in four days and even though we only met at the beginning of the week, it felt like we’d become such good friends.
It was such a privilege swimming over the Seagrass meadow at Craignish and hearing how this unique and beautiful habitat has once again started to thrive
We shall be back for some more training in August and then it will be onto the important work of checking the health and monitoring progress of the Seagrass meadow up here near Ganavan in Oban
If any of you would like to get involved, please contact Danielle @seaweedgardens
If any of you want to donate to @seawilding there’s a donate button on their website
#seagrass #rewilding #argyll #seaconservation #communityconservation
Last week, Seawilding spent a fabulous day at Loch Na Cille in Knapdale planting 1000 seagrass plants in a shallow bay adjacent to a small pre-existing seagrass meadow. After the success of our restoration trials at Loch Craignish, we're now branching out to other sites in Argyll to see if we can roll out this success. Seagrass restoration is complex, there are so many environmental variables to consider, and the data and knowledge we gain from each of these trials helps us chart a route to restoration at scale. We know that around 95% of seagrass has disappeared around the UK coastline to the detriment of water quality and biodiversity - if we can bring it back, it's a win win on multiple levels. We were joined in the water by snorkelling volunteers from @highlandsrewilding . Wonderful to have a new community of enthusiasts working alongside us!
Now that Spring is well advanced in Scotland, the plankton is blooming (it’s pea soup down there) and our native oysters are growing fast in the nursery. You can see the finger-nail growth in just a few weeks. Also growing is a mass of sugar kelp on the cages that needs stripping off as it impedes the flow of feed to the oysters. Seen here is Freya, still smiling after a day scrubbing cages. What a great intern!
At this time of year we are busy dealing with the marine growth that goes wild as the sea temperature rises, it slows water flow in the nursery environment, and blue mussels bind oysters together and poo all over them which they do not appreciate. In Loch Broom we are grateful for the funding we got from the @newbroomrebloom to buy cages with larger mesh which has saved a lot of scrubbing time!
Brace yourselves - we think marine conservation is increasingly fashionable, and here's the range of Seawilding work gear to prove it. Available in three styles: soggy, wet or damp.
🌊 Only 2 places remaining on our BSAC Advanced Snorkel Diver Course & Lifesaver Award, running 11th–14th May 2026.
If you’re already a competent snorkeller and want to take your skills to the next level, this course combines advanced theory with practical open-water training. You’ll build confidence, gain recognised qualifications, and develop skills that are especially valuable for marine habitat restoration projects.
Perfect for anyone keen to get more involved in hands-on ocean conservation.
For more info or to book head to the link in our bio.
#restorationschool
Now that spring has finally arrived on the west coast of Scotland the team have been in full swing in the water on seagrass operations. So far, we have transplanted around 3500 seagrass shoots - a step towards the 24,000 total for 2026. This year's planting will cover a total area of just under half a hectare (4800m2), up from last year's total of 0.3 hectares, and comprises several trials including new sites outside Loch Craignish. We're super excited to be working together with communities in Knapdale and Oban to investigate whether the successes that we've had in Loch Craignish can be replicated elsewhere - potentially a significant step towards scaling up seagrass restoration in Scotland.
As on land spring is bringing a surge of life to our intertidal zone as the waters warm and the days lengthen. We had a brilliant shore session with the @ullapoolseasavers yesterday where we found an astonishing array of life on a tiny patch of Ullapool shoreline, including myriad species of worm, cling fish galore, horse mussels, and the critically endangered European eel.
Last August, we set up an experiment to see whether we could reduce the number of released oysters being eaten by starfish, crabs, and whelks. We placed oysters in @beseproducts biodegradable mesh bags in different configurations on the seabed to find out if this simple protection could reduce predation compared with being left exposed.
Last month, with the help of our brilliant volunteers, we hauled the bags back up to measure growth and survival across all 1,800 juvenile oysters, and 1,650 adults, and the results are looking really encouraging.
93% of the juvenile oysters we laid down survived when placed in bags!
We’re not yet sure whether that’s down to protection from predators, less movement, reduced burial, or a mix of all three, but it’s a very promising result and a clear step toward improving survival in future oyster releases.
And it’s not just the youngsters doing well, our adult oysters showed 86% survival across both sites too. Good spots for oysters it seems.
As we head into warmer waters this summer, we’ll be watching closely to see how these oysters continue to grow, survive, and hopefully, breed!
We think we’ve finally got proof through genetic testing that our native oyster restoration results are breeding and resulting in a new stock of wild oysters at Loch Craignish. We compared each wild-settled oyster to every possible parent candidate we’ve raised in our nursery and checked whether their genetic profiles are compatible with a parent–offspring relationship. The results suggest they are immediately descended from the restoration oysters we’ve been putting down at the Loch, meaning the restoration oysters appear to be successfully reproducing and contributing to local recruitment. This is exciting news!
Thanks so much to the brilliant geneticist Tom Ashton from @native_aqua for conducting this research. He sedated the native oysters, then extracted a sample of tissue for genetic analysis. The oysters were then returned to the sea – 100% survived – where we hope they will create a self-sustaining population in the fullness of time.
We had a great day with the @UllapoolSeaSavers and the Achiltiebuie kids at the lovely Tanera bothan. Everyone put in a hard day's graft listening and learning, crushing shell for spat collectors, and cleaning the beach at Badentarbat. It was extra special to see the St Vincent under full sale, a restored herring drifter which reminds us of the abundant fisheries which were such a huge part of the cultural heritage in the area. There are increasing signs of herring in the Wester Ross MPA, which gives us hope that protection works. Big thanks to Am Bothan & The Manse for making this possible.
We spent some time in the classroom last week with Carbost primary school learning how to monitor and measure oysters before heading out into the teeth of the gale to put the learning into action, they are a hardy bunch!
