A new study points to pyridine pollution as the most likely culprit behind the deaths of crustaceans, with dredging in the river Tees a possible source.
A mysterious die-off of crustaceans on the north-east coast of England was probably caused by industrial pollution, according to a new study, contradicting the findings from a government report.
In October 2021, tens of thousands of dead and dying crabs and lobsters started washing up along the Tees estuary on the North Yorkshire coast and then further south in the fishing town of Whitby.
The UK’s Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched an investigation into the deaths in December 2021.
More dead crabs washed up on the coast in the region in February 2022. Fishing communities in Hartlepool told the BBC in June that they feared their businesses would fail due to a dramatic fall in catch numbers this year.
John Bothwell at the University of Durham says that he did not totally believe the findings of Defra’s report into the crustacean deaths. “The evidence for the deaths [collected by Defra] were circumstantial,” says Bothwell. “There’s a lot of good stuff in the agency report but the satellite imagery shows the presence of chlorophyll – but chlorophyll can come from any kind of algae, not necessarily toxic ones.”
He reached out to the North East Fishing Collective and together they raised £30,000 to commission an independent study into the deaths. Bothwell and his colleagues collected water samples and dead crab samples from the region and tested the effects of pyridine on crabs. They also modelled the effects of dredging on contaminating water bodies with pollutants.
The findings, which have been sent to Defra but not yet published, argue that the deaths were probably not caused by an algal bloom and are more likely to be due to pyridine pollution.