The North East Coast’s Mass Death of Crustaceans Suggests That Urgent Further Investigation Should Be Conducted

An academic from Newcastle University spoke before a parliamentary committee regarding the enormous fatalities of crustaceans of the North East coast, and the committee recommended urgently conducting more research.

The select committee has requested an urgent investigation and additional research into the causes of mass die-offs of crabs and lobsters on the North East coast in a letter to Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey, based on the scientific evidence provided by Dr. Gary Caldwell, senior lecturer in applied marine biology.

Deaths of crab and lobster throughout England's coast

(Photo : Chandler Cruttenden/Unsplash)

The letter was issued during a hearing on October 25 and was signed by MP Sir Robert Goodwill, the head of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee, as per Phys.Org

It calls for more information and study, urgent investigation of potential pyridine sources, a review of the dredging activity in the Tees by the Maritime Management Organization (MMO), and routine pyridine checks by the MMO until the cause of the mass die-off is known.

The committee heard testimony regarding the possible causes of the large deaths of crabs and lobsters that occurred in the autumn and winter of 2021 off the coasts of the Northeast and North Yorkshire, as well as the effects these deaths are having on fishing communities.

It was unclear what caused the die-offs, but theories included everything from toxic algae bloom to the release of chemicals due to intense dredging of the Tees estuary.

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Background to Marine Pollution

In the modern world, marine pollution is becoming a bigger issue.

Chemicals and rubbish are the two main sources of pollution in our ocean, as per the National Geographic.

Chemical contamination, often known as nutrient pollution, is problematic for the environment, human health, and the economy.

This kind of pollution happens when human activities, particularly the application of fertilizer on farms, cause chemical runoff into waterways that eventually empty into the ocean.

Algal blooms are encouraged by the elevated levels of chemicals in the coastal water, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be hazardous to wildlife and dangerous to humans.

Algal blooms have a severe impact on the ecosystem and human health, which hurts the local fishing and tourism sectors.

High Levels of Pyridine affect the crab

The tissues of the dead crabs had high concentrations of pyridine, a substance that has a long history of leakage into the River Tees, according to an early laboratory study.

No information was available, though, on the pyridine's toxicity to crabs.

To close this information gap, The Fishmongers' Company hired Newcastle University to conduct the study.

A variety of pyridine solutions were applied to edible crabs (Cancer pagurus), and observations were made on the animals' behavior, signs of cellular stress, and ability to survive for up to three days.

Pyridine induced convulsive behaviors, paralysis, and death within six hours at the highest tested concentration range, comfortably within the levels detected in the deceased crabs.

As the pyridine concentrations were decreased, the onset of paralysis took longer, but mortality was still high.

The study demonstrated that pyridine is highly hazardous to crabs, even at concentrations lower than those found in the bodies of deceased crabs as measured by the Environment Agency.