By Mike Murphy

Education Development Manager

One of things about exploring your local beach is you never know what you may find. Wild Beach encourages children to be observant and aware of their environment, which can lead to some fantastic discoveries.

Sam Cross, a Forest and Beach School Leader, was taking a class of children from East Preston Infants School to discover their local beach. Six-year old Taylor Elliott made an exciting discovery on the strandline when they found the remains of a seahorse.

Sam reported the find to the Seahorse Trust, who were able to confirm it was a young female short-snouted seahorse. The seahorse was sent to the Natural History Museum for DNA testing, as seahorses are difficult to study a find like this can lead to further research and it will make a real difference to our overall knowledge of this species, so we can protect them better.

Sam, who trained with the Sussex Wildlife Trust Forest School and Wild Beach programmes, said “It has also been really exciting for the children, who are now seahorse experts. The beauty and power of Beach and Forest School lies in the irresistible draw that our natural environment has for our children. They see it as playing, we know it to be learning”