Ask anyone who has visited Wells, what their favourite activity was and there’s a good chance they’ll say ‘catching crabs’. Kids love it and it’s long been one of the cheapest, simplest forms of entertainment and enjoyment that Wells offers. The popularity has now caused its own problems though.
The Port and the Wells Harbour Maritime Trust estimates that 30,000 plastic buckets and reels are sold in Wells during the summer season, with many ending up in the harbour. Polluting the sea where the plastic degrades due to solar radiation and oxidation into smaller and smaller pieces. Marine life mistakes it for food and strangle on the ingested plastic. Marine animals also get entangled in the Plastic nylon line.
A novel solution has been funded by local authorities and community groups – a quayside ‘Gilly Hut’.
The hut will feature information on the environment and rent metal buckets, lines just long enough to reach from the quayside to the estuary bed and bait. It’s hoped that education and rental will provide choice to visitors, who will respond positively, to help improve the environment and reduce harm to marine life. The Harbour authority is not banning plastic buckets or longer lines, but hopes this initiative will vastly reduce the number of plastic buckets finding their way into the sea.
We hope guests of the Mousetrap and other holiday cottages will support this initiative and we’ve included details of the Gilly Hut in our house information file. Want to know more? Contact us: enquiry@mousetrapwells.co.uk Or call: 07966 191 737 Alternatively contact The Port and the Wells Harbour Maritime Trust: harbouroffice@wellsharbour.co.uk
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