An unknown trigger has left a North-West beach covered in hundreds of dead crabs.
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Burnie woman Kim Jarvis was out for a walk along the beach at Wivenhoe on Friday afternoon with her friend, James Kelly, when they stumbled upon "piles and piles" of dead crabs.
"We walk there everyday," she said.
"That's the first time we've seen anything like that. They were all varying sizes but the same breed ... there must have been hundreds of them."
She said most had bodies about the size of a saucer, some had pincers up to six inches long, and that some were far smaller.
"I don't know if they were spider crabs or whatever," she said.
"Their bodies hadn't even dried out or anything, so they hadn't been there too long."
She said the beach was "very popular" with dog walkers, and had been busy on Friday evening.
"There was a lot of other people on the beach and they were all talking about it," she said.
"Some people were trying to throw them back in, but it was a bit too late."
Regular beach user Brodie Weeding confirmed he had also never seen anything like it before, and that he "thought it was strange" for crabs to get stranded on sand.
Know anything about this incident? Contact megan.powell@theadvocate.com.au