About the event

In 2023 a large collection of tropical sea shells came to the Fine Foundation Wild Seas Centre.  

Four stories emerged from these boxes of shells, and these form the foundations of this display.

1. The Collectors
2. The Snail that Built an Empire
3. Deadly Beauties
4. Spirals in Nature

Behind all of these stories lies the familiar story that many shellfish, and by their nature their shells, are sometimes threatened by over collection and habitat degradation.

The common whelk is just one example of several species that have suffered a steep decline around the Channel Islands. All because of overharvesting.

Historically, tropical shells were brought to Britain as curiosities. The extraordinary story of Joseph Banks and the HMS Endeavour first voyage is part of the exhibition that visitors can see at the Centre.

The Bronze Age Phoenicians discovered that they could extract a beautiful violet-purple dye from the hypo branchial gland of the murex sea snail. And then the Romans exploited these molluscs to near local extinction.

Deadly Beauties explores the double edged sword of the remarkable cone snails.

They make a powerful venom that we use for either warfare or medicine. Visitors can see some of these shells in the exhibition.

Finally, Spirals in Nature opens a door into the remarkable similarities between Spiral Galaxies, flowers, cyclones and spiral shell shapes.

Today although we often understand the damage that we cause. For this exhibition, The Trust reuse old collections of shells that no longer have an impact on living ones to highlight some of these issues.