Mystery as 50,000 dead starfish wash ashore in Ireland

Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:22 pm » by **One-23**

Strange how this one has not been up yet (search returned no results)

Apologies if it's a repost

Mystery as 50,000 dead starfish wash ashore in Ireland

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More than 50,000 starfish have been found dead after being washed ashore at a beautiful beach on the western coast of Ireland.

The thousands of starfish formed a bizarre carpet at Lissadell beach in County Sligo on the Western Irish coast.
So far, no one has been able to determine why the starfish died.

Bill Crowe, an Irish marine biologist and lecturer at Sligo Institute of Technology, says they could have been lifted up by a storm while feeding on the offshore mussel beds.

"The most likely explanation is that they were feeding on mussels but it is a little strange that none of them were attached to mussels when they were washed in," he said.

He says they have ruled out something like "red tide" or algal bloom because this would have washed other sealife ashore with them.

"These were almost all adult size and the typical starfish variety that is found in the North Atlantic but there was nothing else mixed in with them," he said.

However, there is still no official explanation for an earlier event this year when thousands of dead starfish washed ashore on Youghal Beach in Co Cork

Scientists could only speculate that they were thrown on to the beach by a storm-fueled underdtow far out at sea.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/myster ... z2Cb0ISUzq

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:16 pm » by **Phoenix rising**

Wow that shocking, sadly not many on this site will see this as a real story when in fact things like this should be getting big attention, something very strange is going on with regard to these incidents and it happening all over the world, Cheers Cagey :flop:

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:21 pm » by **Ishumble**

I wonder it it has happened before? They are unique creatures,something caused it but what?

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:28 pm » by **E6722maj**

very strange. i'm sure starfish have an extremely strong grip, hundreds of suckers anchor them down (?) would be a hell of a storm to dump that many on a beach. :think:

.

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:32 pm » by **mykingdomforthetruth**

sea temp ? Ireland and britian have been suffering seriously cold winters since the gulf oil release

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:47 pm » by **Phoenix rising**

It's still my guess it is likely something to do with the poles shifting, maybe these creatures like many others use the magnetic field for navigation and because it out of sync we are seeing these frequent beachings

Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:52 pm » by **The57ironman**

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......probably poisoned by the gulf oil rig fiasco......... :peep:

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Sun Nov 18, 2012 9:14 pm » by **Cwmman**

This happened in Southern Ireland this year and N.Wales last year aswell.

The weather is getting the blame for it.

Sun Nov 18, 2012 9:44 pm » by **One-23**

It would be great to have some kind of timeline available to monitor all these anomalous animal deaths and actually see if a pattern occurs over a period of time.
No doubt somewhere out there on the Webz a record exists :think:

Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:27 pm » by **Dagnamski**

http://chartmaker.mathwarehouse.com/create-pie-chart/