More pipefish?!!

[5150]

Been taking the pup for long walks on Druridge Bay beach, tide was out last night and the beach was littered with dead pipefish. Not just the odd one or two but hundreds of them. Noticed there was a hell of a lot of dead small-ish crabs of all kinds aswell, mostly pretty well broken up - which makes me wonder is something feeding on the crabs and pipes or has something else killed them...

 

[micky-quayle]

its strange what you say about dead crabs, in the sunderland area theres been a lot of dead crabs and lobsters washed up this week. not sure if its a natural phenomonen or something more insidious. seems very widespread its a large area !

 

[Glenn Kilpatrick]

You quite often see the dead crabs after rough seas and lots of fresh water in the rivers. Not sur eif its the same with you guys up there.

The pipefish are odd creatures. I've been observing them when crabbing and they have a desire to ground themselves. When the tide goes out they don't swim with it, they are alive at the time put obviously die through being out of the water. I read somewhere they were meant to be found in deeper water, maybe they arent used to the tide going out

 

[5150]

There's about half a dozen different pipefish in our waters, they're all inshore species though. I can understand them ending up on the beach amongst the weed but all these ones last night had obviously been dead a while before being washed up going off the state of the remains....