SEVERAL North Sea beaches have been left ankle-deep in sea creatures, after tens of thousands of them were washed up following the recent extreme weather.

A layer of marine animals has been left covering beaches in Yorkshire and the North-East after a combination of freezing temperatures and storms killed off a proportion of sea life.

Seaham, County Durham and the Holderness coast in Yorkshire have seen countless crabs, starfish, mussels and lobsters ankle-deep in places.

Most of the creatures are dead, but lobsters, crabs and other creatures that can survive outside of the water have done so.

Fishermen from Scarborough, Bridlington and other areas on Sunday and Monday travelled to beaches and are working with animal conservationists and other people to beaches near Flamborough, Barmston and Wilsthorpe to help rescue the lobsters that are still alive.

They gathered them into buckets and transported them to tanks in Bridlington, where they are being kept in aerated tanks.

Many of the live lobsters are under-sized, or carrying eggs, so cannot be fished. Fishermen plan to release the lobsters several miles out at sea to replenish stocks.

On other parts of the coast, the storms had a very different effect; sweeping the sand away from North Bay in Scarborough and Redcar beach. Remarkably, the loss of sand from Redcar  revealed the remains of an ancient, petrified forest that had been beneath the sand.

The forest is thought to be at least 7,000 years old and stretches for several miles from Hartlepool down the coast.  

The storm left its ancient tree stumps and branches exposed.

The Northern Echo:

The recent severe weather left an ancient, petrified forest exposed on Redcar beach. Picture: North News and Pictures

Bex Lynam, North Sea Marine Advocacy Officer with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, was at Fraisthorpe beach in Yorkshire, one of the beaches where tens of thousands of sea creatures were washed up.

“We have seen similar events in Seaham, Hunstanton in Norfolk and Ramsden. The wildlife that has washed up depends on the local species population. Here in Yorkshire there’s lots of crabs and in Kent it’s predominantly starfish.

“I would say what is most likely to have happened is the sea temperatures dropped from about 5C to about 2C. That has caused the animals to hunker down, so they become less active and stop moving so much and take refuge from the cold. Normally waves would only penetrate down two to three metres, but in these conditions the waves have reached the seabed at about ten metres and dislodged a lot of sea life. So, it’s been this combination of cold temperatures and strong winds.”

Bex said they were expecting the mass wash-up of sea life to continue for the next couple of days and urged people not to take home any of the shellfish or other creatures home to eat, as they could have been dead for several days.

She said they would have to let nature take its course and allow the dead sea creatures to be washed back into the sea or eaten by birds. She said such a large loss of sea life would have a short-term affect on marine stocks, but long-term it would recover.

“This is a very rare event, but nature has a fantastic way of recovering,” she said. “Generally speaking stocks will replenish. We would expect it to have a detrimental effect in the short-term because it’s a number of species affected and it will have a cascading effect on the food chain.

“This is really devastating for our marine life and it’s awful to see to see these scenes, but if there’s a silver lining it’s that it gives people the chance to see just how rich our waters are.

“Who would have though all of this lives in our seas?”