100,000s washed up in England

[michael]

Has anyone got any ideas why 100,000's of blue crabs dead and alive are washed up on a beach in Kent , England today. Never seen these on beach in English Channel before.

[Stevo]

It may be caused by what I've been told is called a "Red Tide" I experienced thai when I was a teenager at Eastern Bay Maryland. I am not very educated on the particulars, but to my understanding algea creates a rapid, temporary lack of oxygen in the water that causes the crabs to literally crawl ashore. Wish I could tell you more, but really do not know the particulars, or if this could even be a possible cause.

[Stevo]

If it is in fact caused by a " Red Tide" the following link will be much more infrormative than I could.
http://www.marinelab.sarasota.fl.us/~mhenry/WREDTIDE.phtml

[mariner]

It's been going on for a while.

14 March 2002
After a sustained period of north-easterly gales, there was a massive stranding of marine animals and weed on the Yorkshire shore (north-east England) between Fraisethorpe and Barmston (East Yorks: Holderness). The most noticeable of the animals washed up were hundreds of thousands of starfish mostly of the Common Starfish, Asteria rubens, but other species were present. The list of interesting animals washed up included decapod crustaceans including Lobsters that were still alive, crabs etc., a wide variety of fish, sea anemones, polychaete worms, molluscs including octopuses, porpoises, seals and tonnes of seaweed. This is the largest stranding recording on these web pages.


http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/BMLSS/strandlin.htm

[DocSmith]

In Mobile Bay, Alabama, on the eastern shore there is a phenomenon called a "Jubilee".  When an algae bloom occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, it depletes the oxygen in the water.  When this mass of de-oxegenated water moves into Mobile Bay, and is blown toward the eastern shore by the prevailing winds, everything in the water tries to get out of the water and up on the shore - fish, shrimp, crabs, you name it.  It happens suddenly, and lasts just a few hours, so if you don't get in on it you are out of luck. When the Jubilee is on, everybody heads for the shoreline with anything you can carry seafood in - laundry baskets, buckets, kid's swimming pools, again, you name it.  They just scoop everything up.  Thousands of flounder, crabs, it is amazing. This has been going on forever, I guess.

  Doc

[eelfisher]

the have blue crabs in england?

[madcrab]

  They may be the "Blue Swimmer" crabs.  They look almost identical to our blue crabs around here....most noticably the claws are longer and more slender.  I don't know if these are the crabs or not...but I saw something a while back about these "Blue Swimmer" crabs being caught in Maine (that area) and they looked like our blue crabs...but a bit different.  Seeing that Maine's coastal waters are a bit too chilly for our blue crabs (in great numbers at least)...I would think the waters around England (being about the same general temperature as those surrounding Maine) would support these "Blue Swimmer" crabs.  Just a thought.

  On second glance...it looks like they are only found around Australia....whatever.   

  http://www.sea-ex.com/fishphotos/crab,.htm

[mariner]

Blue crabs are found from Nova Scotia to Uruguay and from the Baltic Sea to France. They were found in the Black Sea in 1967; in Japanese waters in 1974. They also live in the waters of Israel, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, the Adriatic Sea, Cyprus, Great Britton, Korea, Indonesia, China, Brazil. Columbia, Equador, India, Maylasia, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and the Ionian Sea.

The United States imports thousands of pounds of blue crab meat from many of the countries every year.

If interested I can provide a link some of the stats.



One source is: INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Launched in 1910, CIESM is one of the oldest and most enduring scientific intergovernmental organisations in the world. The Commission is currently funded by 23 Member States which support the work of a large scientific network - some 500 institutes and over 2500 researchers - united by a commitment to promote marine science for the lasting protection of the Mediterranean Sea and for the well-being of its coastal populations.

[jack1747]

Blue crabs are found from Nova Scotia to Uruguay and from the Baltic Sea to France. They were found in the Black Sea in 1967; in Japanese waters in 1974. They also live in the waters of Israel, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, the Adriatic Sea, Cyprus, Great Britton, Korea, Indonesia, China, Brazil. Columbia, Equador, India, Maylasia, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and the Ionian Sea.

I am pretty sure that I read somewhere that Atlantic blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) was/is an "introduced" species in those areas.  Like the Green Crab is for us.

[mariner]

You got it, Jack. Just as zebra mussels get here by hitching a ride on something, usually a ship, crab larva are found in the ballast of ships and are transported all over the world.

[eelfisher]

thanks for the info, mariner.  interesting...

[madcrab]

  Mariner always has the answers

[mariner]

I only reply to those things I might know something about. It gives a good false impression about smarts!