This morning with the extreme low tide, (tonight is the full moon) the small sandbar off the north end of Taylor beach was exposed for a few hours. As the tide came back in, a crow and a glaucous winged-gull were patrolling the area and picking up sandlance as they emerged from the sand, flipped around a few times and then died. In 15 minutes walking back and forth along the 40 metre stretch of the sandbar, I picked up 15 of the dead sandlance, forage fish. Several that were still active were returned to the water where they died within a few minutes. Perhaps this a solution– having direct predation as soon as they emerge from their sand burrows in order to prevent fouling of the beach..
Species recognized by IRMNG:
Kingdom: Animalia +
Phylum: Chordata
Class : Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Ammodytidae
Genus: Ammodytes Linnaeus, 1758
Species: personatus