DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709260423

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: THE COASTAL JOURNAL 

SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

A GENEROUS ATLANTIC PROVIDED GOOD HUNTING FOR BEACHCOMBERS

A number of critters have been washing up on our beaches lately and the causes are varied but it doesn't appear that anything too sinister is going on.

The Atlantic Ocean was especially generous to beachcombers over the weekend, spewing up hundreds of dying sand dollars, moon shells and sea stars at the North End.

Generally those searching the ocean beach for treasures here don't find much. A large sand bar exists offshore and the bar blocks shells from washing in.

At rare times, particularly after a storm passes up the coast even well offshore as Hurricane Erika did recently, the churning waters are powerful enough to lift small sea denizens up and over the bar. Very low tides accompanying a full moon, which we had recently, also can expose the critters that have washed close to shore when they otherwise would be under water.

Whatever happened, last Saturday was a bonanza for beachcombers. At low tide sand dollars could be found, buried just under the sand or in the gentle surf. Graceful round brown shells of moon snails were left behind in tide pools. Hermit crabs living in tiny whelk shells and sea stars were sprinkled among the seaweed.

Last week, the same type of phenomena occurred on North Carolina beaches. Thousands of surf clams among mounds of sea stars washed up along the northern Outer Banks.

Here, sand dollars were especially interesting because they could be found right above the tide line buried just under the sand. Their presence was revealed by a tiny mound of sand pierced by two or three holes, which were the result of the sand dollar's attempts to circulate water.

Many were broken - not typical round ones - yet they were alive. Live sand dollars are greenish brown and are covered with tiny little spines that feel slightly rough. They also have little moving tube feet underneath which propel them through the sand.

The moon snails were also fascinating. You could see the large snails' feet beginning to come out of their shells as they attempted to get back to deeper water. The foot itself is huge and when it is fully extended, you would never believe it could fit back into the shell again but it can.

Then on Monday, city beach cleanup crews were called to the Chesapeake Bay beach where they picked up close to a ton of dead menhaden fish between the Lesner Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. But the presence of fish on the Bay beach and invertebrates on the ocean beach probably were not related.

This is the time of year when menhaden are migrating in huge schools down the Bay to deep water where they will spend the winter. You can see the giant menhaden fishing boats offshore and hear their spotting planes drone overhead.

Menhaden are inedible and are valuable only to the menhaden industry, which processes the fish into products like animal feed and oil for paints and cosmetics. But this time of year, gill net fishermen may inadvertently run into a menhaden school. When they do, they usually dump their full nets back into the water, explained Mark Swingle, a curator at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Then the dead fish wash up on the beach.

When a fisherman catches a species that he doesn't want, like menhaden, it's called a ``bycatch.'' Often this time of year, when hundreds of female crabs wash ashore, they may also be bycatch victims, Swingle said. Trawlers that drag the ocean floor for flounder and other bottom-dwelling fish often come up with a net load of female crabs that have traveled down to the mouth of the Bay to burrow in the bottom for the winter. The crabs are dumped back, too.

The next time you are worried about a fish or crab kill on the beach, look for fishing activity offshore as an explanation. And look at the fish. Silvery menhaden are distinctive because they have no teeth. Menhaden are plankton eaters and they have gill filaments in their big mouths in place of teeth to filter plankton from the water.

More often than not, you need look no further than Mother Nature or commercial fisherman for the cause of critter kills on our beaches.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Adell Hubbard's banana tree is blooming its heart out now. Fifteen bananas are ripening on the 3-year-old tree that's blooming for the first time this year.

Chip Brooks hung a staghorn fern in a moss basket outside for the summer. But it got more than warm sun and gentle rain. The fern is now surrounded by a yellow jacket nest that is growing bigger by the day. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW

Last Saturday's low tide was a bonanza for beachcombers. Live

starfish, below, could be found buried in the sand and moon snails,

left, were stranded in tide pools.

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