Thousands of dead crustaceans have been washed up on Ardentinny beach and there’s a mystery surrounding their emergence.
Earlier this week a number of local residents contacted this newspaper to report that they had noticed thousands of dead shrimp like sea creatures, which were covering large areas of Ardentinny beach.
Witnesses also reported that a mass of seagulls moved in to feed on the dead crustaceans.
Pictures and videos of the dead sea creatures were passed onto the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban for identification and to determine why so many had been washed ashore at one time.
Professor Michael Burrows, a marine ecologist at SAMS in Oban, explained: “From the pictures, these look like Northern krill, which come up to the surface of the water to feed at night. It’s therefore possible that a strong overnight gale could have blown them across the loch and driven them onto the shore.”
Northern krill usually inhabit the Norwegian Sea, North Sea, and parts of the Mediterranean and are known as ‘zooplankton’, as they provide food for whales, seals, fish, and birds.
Professor Burrows said: “It’s an unusual event, but I have seen something like this before, around 15 years ago, in St Catherines. As an aside, another of our scientists said she found a large number of dead sea urchins, Psammechinus miliaris, on Cuil Beach, near Duror, over the weekend.”
According to research other possible explanations for ‘krill die-offs’ can include natural events, parasites, changes in ocean temperature, algal blooms, where high levels of certain algal toxins can be harmful to krill and in some cases the potential impact of delousing agents used in salmon farms.
