My morning beach walk started as usual. As I walked along the beach at low tide I came across a horseshoe crab on it's back. I gently kicked it and noticed that it was dead so I couldn't save it as I would normally do.
I resumed my walk not noticing much in front of me because I keep looking at the sand in search for anything interesting.
I walked towards the water over the very slippery algae covered rocks in the hopes that one that I turned over would reward me with a handful of amphipods as they normally did in the past. But there was nothing, not even one amphipod.
I also only found one, invasive Japanese Shore crab. A species that just two years ago used to cover all the spaces under these rocks.
There was nothing alive. No baby eels, worms, crabs, snails or even barnacles.
I heard a woman calling me and I looked up to see an Asian Woman in her 60s pointing at something in the water.
It was this heron
Normally they stand in shallow water looking for something to eat. I remarked that it was beautiful and walked towards the woman.
In her broken English, She asked me if I was looking for mussels, clams or oysters. I told her, No, and was trying to think of how I was going to explain "amphipod" to her in her limited understanding of my language.
She seemed to understand and told me she had lived here for 25 years and used to come here to this beach to collect shellfish and swim. She said there used to be many seagulls that would pick up shellfish and drop them on the rocks to crush them so they could eat them.
Now, except for two seagulls, they were all gone along with the shellfish.
WE walked and discussed how dead the sea near here is now. The birds, fish and shellfish are mostly gone to be replaced by seaweed.
This is due to all the farms and golf courses lining the Long Island Sound on eastern Long Island.
We agreed on this and she said, it is a terrible thing that we are doing to the ocean. I agreed with her and we went our separate ways.
I hope to see her again so we can continue our discussion.
