Flora and Fauna
The noted British biologist Brian J. Ford used to live and write at Swanbridge and explored Sully Island frequently. He also carried out extensive ecological studies, while surveying and mapping both the island and the foreshore. Ford recorded many plants unusual for the area, including the bee orchid, the marine spleenwort and the adder's tongue fern.
The island once supported a vast colony of rabbits. When the disease myxomatosis arrived in Britain, during 1953 from France, the mainland population of rabbits was quickly decimated. Mostly because of its remoteness from the mainland the Sully Island rabbits survived for many years until the disease finally arrived on the island, some suspect through a human agency. From time to time new rabbit colonies set up home on Sully Island but at nowhere near the early 1950s levels.
The waters around Sully Island are fished for species such as cod, whiting, pouting, dogfish, Conger eel and bass.
Any trees that grew on the island have been long cut down and even scrubby bushes struggle to gain a foothold on the sandy and loamy surface. Most of the island is covered with a coarse grass.
Read more about this topic: Sully Island
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