Pembrokeshire: Stranded starfish on Welsh beaches

Giles Davies of Cosheston, Pembrokeshire, photographed the thousands of stranded starfish

"Tens of thousands" of stranded starfish have been washed up on the Welsh coast.

"I have never seen something like this before," said Giles Davies, an amateur nature photographer.

Mr Davies photographed thousands of the stranded sea creatures on Coppet Hall Beach in Pembrokeshire.

"It's really sad to just see that in nature, because you're looking at deaths in the thousands of one species," he said.

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A beach in Scotland saw a similar stranding of sea life last November following bad weather from Storm Arwen.

Extreme weather is the likely cause of such incidents, said the Marine Conservation Society.

Stormy weather and strong tides are usually the case of such incidents

Mr Davies said there had been reports of starfish stranded on beaches from Coppett Hall all the way up the coastline to Tenby, Pembrokeshire.

"That would kind of make sense because Tenby is the first place where the tide turns in Wales, so when you get strandings they come to shore generally in that area," said Mr Davies.

"But it's the sheer volume, you're always going to get winter tides where stuff will come ashore.

"For that volume to come ashore, no, something seriously has gone wrong with nature," he said.

Jake Davies, a marine biologist who works for the Angel Shark Project Wales, said large storms are often the cause of such events.

"This type of event of stranding does occur following a big storm along with big tides," he said.

"Every year there are images of large strandings of starfish coming ashore.

"A similar event was seen on the Gower beach [last] year where rock pools were full of starfish."

Mr Davies added: "It's an incredible thing to see, it's very, very sad but it's an incredible thing to see."

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