Sunday, January 07, 2018

Large numbers of Starfish washed up on Nairn's beaches - recent storm to blame?

This video posted earlier today by Nigel shows the situation today:

Others posted images on local Facebook groups. There has been mention too of similar scenes elsewhere but only images so far from one other beach in Scotland - there was a tweet showing the scene at Portobello today.
Similar scenes then in at least two different parts of the Scottish Coastline. In a report today on a BBC webpage they mention a previous event on Rosemarkie beach in April and state: "In that case, marine experts said the invertebrates may have got caught up by strong winds or tides as they changed location."

One commentator on social media made reference to scenes in recent years on the West Coast of America that have seen large numbers of Starfish washed up on the coastline, the blame there has been put on "Sea Star Wasting Disease." The creatures shown in the video from Nairn look healthy enough though but one would imagine the authorities will do tests to see if anything drastic has happened over and above a weather event.    

1 comment:

joe Telfer said...

Starfish indicate barren ground from a fisherman's point of view (bear sand). The recent storm coincided with Deep low pressure over the north Sea and also high spring tide which raised sea levels about a foot higher than they should have been. This might account for the Starfish ending higher up the beach.