Some of the dead crabs that washed up on Downings beach following the recent spell of bad weather. Photo courtesy of Brian Mills.
DOZENS of dead crabs that washed up on a Donegal beach most likely perished because of the extreme weather conditions that gripped the county last week.
The remains of a significant number of the large brown crustaceans were spotted by visitors to Downings on Saturday afternoon.
Strabane man Brian Mills, who photographed the macabre scene, said he had never encountered anything like it.
“I was surprised because normally you might only find a piece of a crab, either the shell or leg. So to see so many of them still in their original state, it was definitely strange.
“I’ve been going to beaches in Donegal my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Mills added.
Norah Parke is an official with the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation and she visited Downings beach on Tuesday evening.
She said she was in little doubt as to what had caused the deaths of so many of the creatures.
“From the crab which were lying on the beach I would have no hesitation in saying this was a result of mortality due to extraordinarily heavy rainfall during the previous week,” Ms Parke told the Donegal News.
“I have seen the same thing happening on other Donegal beaches with other species such as razor clams and surf clams in past years.
”In times of very high rainfall there is always the danger of effluent being washed down into bays and beaches and sewage systems being overloaded – people need to be very vigilant if they manage such systems – but in this case I believe it was an overload of rainwater.”
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