A Bad Case of Sea Squirts

A couple of weeks ago a constituent of Kenny MacAskill MSP contacted the office concerned that sewage was building up at the Joppa end of Portobello beach. We quickly got onto the case and asked SEPA to investigate.

The ongoing problems at the Seafield sewage works were in my mind and I feared there had been another leak from the works. SEPA investigated and with the help of the constituent who had contacted tracked down the section of beach that had been affected. In the water and building up they saw a brown sludgy substance – things were no looking promising.

Upon further investigation though it transpires that it wasn`t sewage building up…but sea squirts. Apprently recent bad whether and rough seas cast up the squirts. SEPA have since issued a release on the find and Owen Foster, one of SEPA’s investigating officers, said: “It was important to establish what had been seen but there was nothing apparent when we were onsite. We went to the beach at both high and low tides over a number of days, but we couldn’t find any trace of sewage.”

It was only when SEPAs ecology unit took a look was the organism identified. According the the SEPA release “The squirts are usually found feeding on plankton, attaching themselves to rocks and kelp from the low intertidal to deeper water. Although the adult is essentially a tube and perhaps not the most interesting animal to look at, its genetic make up and larva has had scientists very excited. Sea squirts share 80 per cent of their DNA with humans, birds and fish, more than they share with worms and starfish. The tadpole larva has a stiffened rod running down its back, which would appear to be the forerunner to all vertebrate backbones, including our own”.

It has been one of the odder constituency cases I`ve dealt with. Thankfully this time there was no pollution problem but if you do spot pollution or sewage then you can call SEPA’s 24 hotline on 0800 70 60 50.