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40,000 crabs join slew of animal-death mysteries
The Toronto Star ^ | 01/06/2011 | Jenni Dunning

Posted on 01/06/2011 1:13:26 AM PST by speciallybland

First, it was birds falling from the sky, then thousands of dead fish washing up on shore.

Now, more than 40,000 Velvet swimming crabs have wound up dead on England beaches. The possible reason? Hypothermia.

The Thanet shoreline is littered with the crabs, along with dead starfish, lobsters, sponges and anemones.

The crabs benefit from warm seas, but when winter hits and snow covers the beaches, they just can’t handle the freezing temperatures, Tony Child, Thanet Coast Project manager, told the Star.

“It is a horrendous crash in the population,” he said, adding similar crab deaths happened in the same place two years and five years ago.

(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: crabs; globalcooling; massdying; velvetswimmingcrab; velvetswimmingcrabs
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1 posted on 01/06/2011 1:13:33 AM PST by speciallybland
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To: speciallybland

Global warming.


2 posted on 01/06/2011 1:17:44 AM PST by taxtruth (Don't end the fed,jail the fed!)
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To: taxtruth

Yeahhh... damn that sun and it’s “global warming” for causing this unusually cold winter.


3 posted on 01/06/2011 1:20:54 AM PST by Minus_The_Bear
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To: speciallybland

Al Gore’s fault


4 posted on 01/06/2011 1:22:35 AM PST by hattend (The meaning of the 2010 election was rebuke, reject, and repeal. - Sarah Palin)
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To: taxtruth

Yes, global warming. Clearly, it is time to award billions of dollars worth of “grants” to “scientists” so they can... study it... and a few zillion more to the UN so they can... whatever they do with money confiscated from working taxpayers.


5 posted on 01/06/2011 1:24:00 AM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: taxtruth

Flash Freezing from ice age.


6 posted on 01/06/2011 1:24:02 AM PST by screaminsunshine (Beware the Big Government Media Complex)
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To: speciallybland

40,000 Velvet swimming crabs couldn’t make me change my mind,...


7 posted on 01/06/2011 1:24:49 AM PST by TigersEye (Who crashed the markets on 9/28/08 and why?)
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To: speciallybland

Martian Death Ray.


8 posted on 01/06/2011 1:34:59 AM PST by VeniVidiVici (My baloney has a first name, it's DEMOCRAT; my baloney has a second name, it's PARTY)
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To: Minus_The_Bear; taxtruth

It’s actually more Global Weirding — weird weather like the enormous floods in normally dry australia, like hotter summers and colder winters. As the world heats us, it disrupts the Gulf stream, the current of warm water that goes from the Gulf of Mexico, along the east coast, up past the UK and the west coast of europe, touching at Murmansk in Russia. Because of this warm current, those regions don’t experience the freezing temperatures of say North Dakota or Poland or Siberia. But if the current weakens or breaks down...


9 posted on 01/06/2011 1:36:23 AM PST by Cronos (Kto jestem? Nie wiem! Ale moj Bog wie!)
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To: speciallybland
this is weird. We could blame the weather, how about scientists?

What are the chances that all these dead creatures were dumped into the oceans already dead? I'm thinking these were lab experiment crabs, fish, birds. The deaths were planned.

The reason for this would be to blame BP or other oil spills.

10 posted on 01/06/2011 1:36:55 AM PST by 1_Rain_Drop
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To: 1_Rain_Drop
What are the chances that all these dead creatures were dumped into the oceans already dead? I'm thinking these were lab experiment crabs, fish, birds. The deaths were planned.

Considering that they're mysteriously able to come up with a "body count" on short notice, especially such a large count, does raise suspicions. I mean, who's going to go out and count 40,000 dead crabs?

11 posted on 01/06/2011 1:45:01 AM PST by meyer (Obama - the Schwartz is with him.)
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To: speciallybland

Paging Mark Levin. Please pick up thered Animals-Not-Persons-Rescue courtesy phone.


12 posted on 01/06/2011 1:46:48 AM PST by Notwithstanding
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To: speciallybland

yeah,Gore’s fault...they didn’t provide little zip up thermal suits for the critters.....on the manatee!


13 posted on 01/06/2011 1:47:47 AM PST by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Cronos
These are crabs which are found commonly in the North Atlantic, from Norway to England .
14 posted on 01/06/2011 1:56:59 AM PST by sushiman
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To: speciallybland

The mass-animal-death reporting craze continues. Ok, now the media’s down to reporting about crab deaths. Up next, “Amoeba Population in Puddle in Front of Brooklyn Townhouse Crashes.”


15 posted on 01/06/2011 2:03:08 AM PST by Rocco DiPippo
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To: speciallybland

Hire this magic man from the island of Siquijor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md7f3w5giNs&feature=&p=3A26537C104A8670&index=0&playnext=1


16 posted on 01/06/2011 2:19:13 AM PST by bushpilot1
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To: 1_Rain_Drop
The reason for this would be to blame BP or other oil spills.

Too bad that none of the cadavers displayed even only traces of crude oil.

So much for your conspiracy theory.

Regards,

17 posted on 01/06/2011 2:30:35 AM PST by alexander_busek
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To: meyer
Considering that they're mysteriously able to come up with a "body count" on short notice, especially such a large count, does raise suspicions. I mean, who's going to go out and count 40,000 dead crabs?

I'm sure that the figure of 40,000 was only an estimate. The scientists probably made a quick estimate of the body count based on the area covered with dead animals, and the average number of dead animals per square meter. The reporter may have also simplified the actual findings (which might have sounded something like "approx. 38,750 crabs +/- 2,500").

Trust reporters to mangle the facts.

Regards,

18 posted on 01/06/2011 2:35:23 AM PST by alexander_busek
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To: speciallybland
According to Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, the dead turtles in the Gulf of Mexico were caused by US commercial fishermen (the millions of gallons of raw crude and further millions of gallons of dispersant chemicals had nothing to do with it). So here it, obviously, must be the British commercial fishermen up to their evil tricks by killing off unwanted species... greedy bunch...
19 posted on 01/06/2011 2:49:12 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine .. now it is your turn..)
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To: speciallybland
From:

Marine Scotland Science Internal Report 16/09

CRAB AND LOBSTER FISHERIES IN SCOTLAND:AN OVERVIEW AND RESULTS OF STOCK ASSESSMENTS,2002-2005

Aileen Mill, Helen Dobby, Anne McLay and Carlos Mesquita

October 2009

The combined crab and lobster creel fishery, which was the 6th most economically important fishery in Scotland in 2006 (Scottish Government, 2006) takes several species of commercial value. The most important crab, in terms of weight and value, landed in Scotland is the edible or brown crab (Cancer pagurus) which is found all around the Scottish coast. The second most important crab species, by landed weight, is the velvet swimmer crab (Necora puber). Velvet crabs were once considered to be a ‘pest’ species, and only asmall scale fishery existed for a few months in the winter. The Scottish fishery expanded in the early 1980s following the collapse of the Spanish fishery (MacMullen, 1983), to becomethe largest in Europe (Tallack, 2002), although few fishermen solely fish for velvets. Other crabs landed include red crab (Geryon quinquedens), the spinous crab (Lithodes maja) and the shore or green crab (Carcinus maenas) but these species only comprise a small proportion of the total landings (Table 1) which are often market driven and irregular(Napier, 2002).

Table 1

Species * Ave. Landings 2002-05 (tonnes) * Ave. value 2002-05 (£/kg)

Brown crab * 7702.8 * 1.09

Velvet crab * 1903.5 * 1.61

Red crab * 178.7 * 1.51

Spinous crab * 0.9 * 0.36

Green crab * 287.6 * 0.50

Lobster * 376.9 * 10.67

Crawfish * 4.7 * 18.08

Norway lobster * 22535.9 * 2.60

40,000 velvet crabs have a weight of approx. 10 tons; the number of dead velvet crabs recently discovered thus represents approx. 1/2% of the annual catch in Scottish waters, alone.

Regards,

20 posted on 01/06/2011 2:54:44 AM PST by alexander_busek
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