Enough fish in the sea?

Barry Yates
, 17 June 2019
Enough fish in the sea?
Common Tern

The breeding terns in Rye Bay - Common, Little and Sandwich - have been struggling to maintain their breeding populations, and it seems to be getting worse. Yesterday we spent 30 minutes watching terns from the shore near the Mary Stanford Lifeboat House at high tide. It was rather sad, with just a few Common Terns seen and NONE dived to try to catch any fish. This suggests there is little food in our sea that is suitable... and remember the recent failure of our Sandwich Tern colony?

There are two long term summaries of the breeding terns of Rye Bay here and here.

Since 2013 there has been a small fish survey at Rye Harbour carried out by a partnership of many organisations and the 2018 report can be read here 

There will NOT be a 2019 survey because of lack of funds 

This is disappointing following the recent extension to the marine Special Protection Area which was mostly about the breeding terns

We will try to develop a method to monitor small fish, perhaps using the inflow to the new saltmarsh. In the meantime it's good to know that the Common Terns can be flexible and are able to find food on the freshwater wetlands.

So, the health of our seas is just one of several large scale environmental challenges, but what can you do as an individual?  

Take a look at this.

We won't be seeing scenes like this in 2019, but next year?

Sandwich tern feeding its chick 02543

Leave a comment
Time Δ Debug Message - Perch Runway 3.2
1783325829.6650 [906] SELECT p.pagePath, pr.routePattern, pr.routeRegExp, p.pageTemplate, pr.routeOrder, s.settingValue AS siteOffline FROM swt_pages_staging p LEFT JOIN swt_page_routes pr ON p.pageID=pr.pageID LEFT JOIN swt_settings s ON s.settingID='siteOffline' UNION SELECT NULL AS pagePath, pr2.routePattern, pr2.routeRegExp, pr2.templatePath AS pageTemplate, pr2.routeOrder, NULL AS siteOffline FROM swt_page_routes pr2 WHERE templateID!=0 ORDER BY routeOrder ASC, pagePath ASC
1783325829.69650.0315Matched route: news/[slug:s]
1783325829.69670.0002Server address: 216.73.216.170
1783325829.69670Using master page: /templates/pages/blog/post.php
1783325829.69670Page arguments: 
Array
(
    [0] => /news/enough-fish-in-the-sea
    [s] => enough-fish-in-the-sea
    [1] => enough-fish-in-the-sea
)
1783325829.69710.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.69810.001 [86] SELECT DISTINCT settingID, settingValue FROM swt_settings WHERE userID=0
1783325829.70030.0022 [1] SELECT locationID FROM swt_shop_tax_locations WHERE locationIsHome=1 LIMIT 1
1783325829.70080.0006INSERT INTO swt_shop_cart(memberID,locationID,currencyID,cartPricing,cartProperties) VALUES(NULL,'1',47,'standard','[]')
1783325829.70260.0018 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22681393
1783325829.70320.0005 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22681393
1783325829.70370.0006 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_sales WHERE saleFrom<='2026-07-06 08:17:00' AND saleTo>'2026-07-06 08:17:00' AND saleActive=1 AND saleDeleted IS NULL ORDER BY saleOrder ASC
1783325829.70490.0012 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='enough-fish-in-the-sea')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-06 08:17:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 10
1783325829.70810.0032 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783325829.70860.0005 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postID=1792 AND postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-06 08:17:00'
1783325829.70950.0009 [13] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
1783325829.71430.0048 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blogs ORDER BY blogTitle ASC
1783325829.71530.001 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=57 LIMIT 1
1783325829.71580.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=70 LIMIT 1
1783325829.71630.0005 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=44 LIMIT 1
1783325829.71690.0006Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783325829.71730.0003 [162] SELECT catID, catPath FROM swt_categories
1783325829.71820.0009 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-06 08:17:00' AND postSlug='enough-fish-in-the-sea'
1783325829.74370.0254Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783325829.74420.0005 [250] SELECT country, countryID FROM swt_shop_countries WHERE countryActive=1 ORDER BY country ASC
1783325829.74570.0015Using template: /templates/pages/attributes/seo.html
1783325829.74640.0007 [1] SELECT regionID, regionTemplate, regionPage, regionRev AS rev FROM swt_content_regions WHERE regionKey='Banner image' AND (regionPage='/news/post' OR regionPage='*')
1783325829.74710.0007 [nil] SELECT * FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, c.regionID, idx.pageID, c.itemJSON, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_content_index idx JOIN swt_content_items c ON idx.itemID=c.itemID AND idx.itemRev=c.itemRev AND idx.regionID=c.regionID JOIN swt_content_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev AND idx2.indexKey='_order' WHERE ((idx.regionID=104 AND idx.itemRev=0)) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev ) as tbl GROUP BY itemID, pageID, itemJSON, sortval, regionID ORDER BY sortval ASC
1783325829.74880.0017 [82] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageDepth >=0 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783325829.75170.0029 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.75210.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783325829.75430.0022Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template.html
1783325829.75430 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.75520.0009 [4] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.76210.0069 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.7640.0019 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.76450.0005 [7] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.76490.0004 [9] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783325829.76960.0048 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' OR pageSortPath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.77020.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageHidden=0 AND pageNew=0 AND pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition
1783325829.77250.0023 [1] Using template: /templates/navigation/breadcrumbs.html
1783325829.77290.0004Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783325829.7730.0002 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='6' LIMIT 1
1783325829.77360.0006Using template: /templates/blog/author.html
1783325829.77390.0003 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='enough-fish-in-the-sea')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-06 08:17:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 1
1783325829.77620.0023 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783325829.77650.0004 [1] Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783325829.77920.0026Using template: /templates/blog/comment_form.html
1783325829.78030.0011 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_comments WHERE 1=1 AND postID=1792 AND commentStatus='LIVE' ORDER BY FIELD(webmentionType, 'like', 'repost', 'comment', NULL) ASC, commentDateTime ASC
1783325829.84120.0609 [0] Using template: /templates/blog/comment.html
1783325829.84130.0002Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783325829.84160.0002 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='6' LIMIT 1
1783325829.84240.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/what-we-do' OR pageSortPath='/what-we-do' LIMIT 1
1783325829.84320.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-002' LIMIT 1
1783325829.84380.0007 [7] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-002%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783325829.84660.0027 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.8470.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783325829.84960.0025 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783325829.85080.0012 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783325829.85140.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783325829.85190.0004 [38] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783325829.85490.003 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.85530.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783325829.85770.0024 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783325829.86120.0035 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/visit' OR pageSortPath='/visit' LIMIT 1
1783325829.86190.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-004' LIMIT 1
1783325829.86240.0005 [30] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-004%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783325829.86520.0029 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.86570.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783325829.86820.0024 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783325829.87080.0027 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783325829.87150.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783325829.87210.0005 [11] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783325829.87420.0021 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783325829.87530.0011 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783325829.87720.0019 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783325829.87850.0013Request time: 0.2169
1783325829.87850Process time: 0.2168
1783325829.87850Memory: 1.6263