A massive swarm of crawfish-looking sea creatures has brought a lot of people out to the shoreline near Pacific Grove’s Lovers Point Park, but one of the coolest views came from the water.
Patrick Webster is a local underwater photographer and a social media associate at Monterey Bay Aquarium. After numerous patrons went to the aquarium yesterday reporting there were a ton of “red things” on the beach, Webster grabbed his camera and hopped into the bay for the return of the pelagic red crab.
Pelagic red crabs are typically found in the waters off Southern California and Mexico.
“This year, with the El Niño, it was expected to see a lot more southern species coming up,” Webster explains. “The last time there were pelagic red crabs [in Monterey Bay] was the El Niño in 1983.”
Pelagic Red Crabs crawl onto the beach near Lover's Point on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the swarms started to attract people to the water to see the phenomenon. Webster estimates millions of crabs have showed up in Monterey in the past two days.
“They go in and out with the current,” he says. “We have already seen a lot of cool things, like baby sheepshead and baby spiny lobsters, due to ‘The Blob’—a mass of warm water spanning from Alaska to Mexico.”
Webster was swimming within grabbing distance of the pelagic red crab and although they have pincers, they are not dangerous.
“It actually smelled like I was in a lobster stew, because there are so many of them,” he says.
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