Every now and again, animals and plants wash up on the beaches in great quantities. Aside from the seasonal cycles which land huge quantities of seaweed on the shores, and cyclical die-offs (e.g. mole crabs), there are the storms that dislodge anything from scallops to surf clams and cockles. I guess this weekend it was the sea cucumber’s turn on the south facing beaches. There were literally hundreds of them along the mile of beach that I walked, and the majority of them were alive – they contracted when touched. Mind you, touching these sea cucumbers took a leap of faith on my part. After all, dogs are still being walked on our beaches, and I was not quite sure what I was dealing with at first.
A fact sheet on the NOAA site mentions that these are a group of animals that are scavengers. Some cling to hard surfaces, and others move along the seafloor to feed on algae and microscopic sea life. I had never thought of some sea cucumbers as being “activeâ€, I always assumed they were just attached to a rock and lived their lives in one place. Not so, apparently. After picking up a good amount of them and throwing them back in the surf, I was somewhat horrified to read that they can “shoot sticky threads at their enemiesâ€, or “violently contract their muscles and shoot some of their internal organs out of their rear endsâ€. I can assure you that would have startled me, to say the least.
Sea cucumbers are regularly eaten by fish, crabs, and by us humans as well. While this is more customary in Asia, there are the beginnings of a commercial industry in the northeast as well. After the decline of cod and now lobster, will this be the next target species?
The species that I found in great numbers was Cucumaria frondosa. It is apparently common in up to 100 feet of water and it prefers to cling to hard surfaces, ranging from rocks to shell debris. Sea cucumbers belong to the same group of animals that includes starfish, sand dollars and sea urchins. However, instead of spikes the longish cylindrical animal has a brown leathery skin. There are two openings on either end: One surrounded with tentacles, for feeding, and the other end should be self-explanatory.
I took some pictures with a year 2000 model flip phone, so they won’t be the best quality, but I will post them as soon as I find a cable that can connect to this ancient phone. I wonder if anyone has any recipes for fresh sea cucumber. I read that most of the sea cucumber available in retail is either frozen or dried. Not that I would try it anytime soon, but there has to be a daredevil out there somewhere…
Leave a Reply