Where capitalism and conservation meet

Spurn point would be a desolate place to die. Stretching five precarious kilometres into the North Sea, the constantly shifting finger of East Yorkshire coast is little more than a narrow sand bank held together by sea grass, the only obvious signs of human habitation a long-abandoned lifeboat station and lighthouse, both now given over to the winds and the rain. It is a permanent home solely to wading birds and the bugs they feast on, perhaps to the odd vole. But it is also, on occasion, the death bed of the world’s largest creatures. Beached on its sand, they suffocate from the weight of their own bodies under its open skies.