Over forty willing volunteers met at the Bluebird Café car park to carry out Ferring Conservation Group’s first beach clean of the year with help from the youngest volunteer to date, Sophia, at almost three years old. The group spread along the beach as far as Sea Lane with some volunteers working along the shoreline while others concentrated on the foreshore area. 
The usual items were collected, mainly small pieces of plastic, fishing line, nylon rope etc., plus a small number of larger items. The small items collected are just as important to remove as these can easily be ingested by marine life as well as wading birds. The strangest item found was an arrow head in the beach hut area and it is hoped that no living thing was used as target practice.
Unusually there were many cartilaginous shark skulls found entangled in seaweed along the shoreline – the skeleton of these sharks are made entirely from cartilage.
