Thousands of dead and dying crabs and lobsters washed up along a 50km stretch of England’s north-east coast last autumn. Observers reported seeing the animals experience peculiar behaviours including convulsions, before suffering paralysis and death.
An initial investigation conducted by the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, concluded that a harmful algal bloom was most likely responsible for the deaths. Autumnal phytoplankton blooms are a normal part of temperate marine ecosystems and can produce potent toxins that attack an animal’s central nervous system. But such blooms typically don’t lead to deaths on the scale seen.
