Dead crabs and starfish

Not just Walton apparently. There have been reports from Ramsgate to Cromer. Crabs, fish & lobsters also affected.
The news blamed the cold spell and high winds but I can't believe that the temperature on the sea bed can suddenly drop dramatically enough to cause this?
 
Certainly will have been cold enough in shallows close to the beach. Sea froze here in Herne Bay for a couple of days, mushy ice.
 
Dan Tribe said:
Not just Walton apparently. There have been reports from Ramsgate to Cromer. Crabs, fish & lobsters also affected.
The news blamed the cold spell and high winds but I can't believe that the temperature on the sea bed can suddenly drop dramatically enough to cause this?
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Are there dead Crabs, fish & lobsters from Ramsgate to Cromer? or is this just a media story? There are no more than usual in Mersea. I also have difficulty believing that the temperature on the sea bed can suddenly drop dramatically enough to cause this.
 
DavidofMersea said:
Are there dead Crabs, fish & lobsters from Ramsgate to Cromer? or is this just a media story? There are no more than usual in Mersea. I also have difficulty believing that the temperature on the sea bed can suddenly drop dramatically enough to cause this.
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Well if it's fake news they certainly went to a lot of trouble collecting many tonnes of starfish that were shown on Ramsgate beach. Fishermen at Cromer were shown collecting hundreds of lobsters, some still alive, that they were returning to the sea [they said].
Who would benefit from such a media scam?
 
DavidofMersea said:
Are there dead Crabs, fish & lobsters from Ramsgate to Cromer? or is this just a media story? There are no more than usual in Mersea. I also have difficulty believing that the temperature on the sea bed can suddenly drop dramatically enough to cause this.
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Cantata said:
I don't expect so, no, just in some places. https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/video-shows-thousands-dead-starfish-1292588
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So that should read Ramsgate and Cromer, not Ramsgate to Cromer
 
DavidofMersea said:
So that should read Ramsgate and Cromer, not Ramsgate to Cromer
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The item I saw was broadcast from Walton. Rather oddly, I saw it at lunchtime on Look East, and later in the evening, when it was dark. Rather than record it and re-broadcast it, they had taken the trouble to pay a journalist and his team to go out in the evening to say exactly the same thing.

There was doom and gloom in the reporter's message, but since few of us are likely to eat crabs a couple of inches across, and even fewer, starfish, I have faith in these species reproductive powers to restore the status quo in less than no time.
 
johnalison said:
The item I saw was broadcast from Walton. Rather oddly, I saw it at lunchtime on Look East, and later in the evening, when it was dark. Rather than record it and re-broadcast it, they had taken the trouble to pay a journalist and his team to go out in the evening to say exactly the same thing.

There was doom and gloom in the reporter's message, but since few of us are likely to eat crabs a couple of inches across, and even fewer, starfish, I have faith in these species reproductive powers to restore the status quo in less than no time.
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OK then, Cromer, Walton and Ramsgate
 
I guess it's going to be a bit smelly on the affected beaches for a while.
I seem to recall that starfish were sometimes used as fertiliser in past times.
 
It does happen from time to time, I saw many thousands of dead starfish on Weybourne beach after a storm a few years ago. More likely to have been wave and current action after the Easterlies, rather than temperature. I cannot imagine this is a threat to the starfish population. Possibly a bit more of a risk to crabs and lobsters in the inshore fishery zone though.
 
I can't remember if the issue of eating dead starfish by dogs has been mentioned here. Dogs have died at Frinton & Felixstowe, and further north in the Wash. Research has linked it to the dead starfish.


**UPDATE - PARALYTIC SHELLFISH POISONING CONFIRMED AS CAUSE OF ILLNESS AND SUDDEN FATALITIES IN DOGS ON NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK BEACHES - PLEASE READ AND SHARE**

Many of you will be aware of reports of dogs having become ill after having been walked on Norfolk’s beaches over the last month. Very sadly one of our patients, a beautiful young and healthy Golden Retriever called Hattie, passed away on New Year’s Eve within an hour of eating some dead starfish from a North Norfolk beach. There is a further report of another dog having died several weeks later within an hour of eating a crab on Felixtowe beach.

Throughout January and late December, there have been unusually high numbers of marine species washed up on East Anglian beaches. Following the loss of Hattie, The Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in Weymouth have carried out testing on some of the dead fish and starfish from Cley beach where Hattie and her family had been walking; they have found naturally occurring marine toxins called Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PST) in these samples. Following this discovery, they have found the same toxins within some of Hattie’s post mortem samples, and also from the crab from Felixtowe beach which the other dog had vomited before he sadly died. These findings lead us to believe that PST toxicity was the cause of death for these 2 dogs.

Paralytic shellfish toxins (PST) are naturally occurring marine toxins produced by some species of plankton; they can accumulate in shellfish such as mussels, and consumption has been reported to result in outbreaks of toxicity in humans; the last recorded outbreak in the UK was in 1968. PST levels are regularly monitored by Cefas in shellfish species which may enter the human food chain; no detectable levels of this toxin have been found around the Norfolk coast before. PST toxicity has never previously been reported in dogs. The toxin is a neurotoxin – this means it acts on the nerves of the body and can cause rapid paralysis, and if eaten in sufficient quantities, can cause death due to paralysis of the respiratory muscles.
 
NHM review clarifies what sane folk knew/suspected. Slightly unusual weather has unusual consequences.
However the author refers to 'ocean' which means he/she is probably less than 25 years old! I never thought of Ramsgate being an ocean-side town.
 
Chalk said:
NHM review clarifies what sane folk knew/suspected. Slightly unusual weather has unusual consequences.
However the author refers to 'ocean' which means he/she is probably less than 25 years old! I never thought of Ramsgate being an ocean-side town.
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I was watching a Japanese programme and heard a woman affected by the Fukuyama event talking about looking out onto the ocean. I was taken back for a second or two, until I realised that she actually meant it.
 
Chalk said:
NHM review clarifies what sane folk knew/suspected. Slightly unusual weather has unusual consequences.
However the author refers to 'ocean' which means he/she is probably less than 25 years old! I never thought of Ramsgate being an ocean-side town.
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The only reference in it to ocean I could find in it was this: ‘Andrew added that stormy weather is the most likely explanation, as water currents become stronger and wash the starfish to the shore. Starfish live on the soft, sandy parts of the ocean floor, and are easily picked up by currents and waves.’

Andrew Cabrinovic is the NHM’s Curator of Echinoderms and graduated in 1983 (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/staff-directory/andrew-cabrinovic.html) so is a bit more than 25. Of course the writer herself rather than Mr Cabrinovic may have used the term ‘ocean floor’ but as the comment was a general one about starfish ecology, and starfish are found from intertidal areas to abyssal depths, I don’t think we should read too much into it! :)
 
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