Dead Crabs?

[Whopper Stopper]

I was in Seaside over the weekend and noticed an unusual amount of dead crabs on the beach. Usually there are a few here and there. This weekend at the tide line the pile was six inches deed in many places. :whazzup:

[Hummingbird]

This could be from the thermal warming spots down deep in the ocean that was hapening further South around Yahats and Newport this Summer with squid. I beleive the commercial crabbers are working with OSU on this. Sounds like it could get smelly after a few days.

[Chum King]

Crabs molt i.e. shed their shells regularly. The molted shells often appear to be a whole crab. They do this in order to grow larger, and for a period after they have molted, they have a relatively soft shell. It is a regular phenomenon this time of year, and that is also a large part of why the ocean crab season is closed from mid-August through November.

If they are molted shells, they will not have any meat or organs left in them.

Hummingbird: Actually it wasn't thermal warming. The "dead zone" described around Yachats, was actually a result of extremely cold water that was brought up onto the continental shelf by the intense upwelling conditions that we had this summer. Also it wasn't the temperatures that killed the critters, it was the fact that this very cold water had a very low dissolved oxygen content. The low oxygen level and very cold and dense water resulted a thermal mixing barrier between the somewhat warmer and well oxygenated surface waters.

The end result that many the species that couldn't or didn't move to avoid the poorly oxygenated water suffocated. :shocked:

[ 09-16-2002, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Chum King ]

[Snakebite]

Were they whole dead crabs? Or just molts? seems a little late for a molt event.

[BottomFeeder]

Fear not, it was a smolt event. Happens every year. Heck if you say they were 6" deep in places, that's great!! That could mean a truckload of crab this year!!

TPM