Where have all the lugworms gone?

Lade - cold and frosty - A cracking day to be out and about with bright winter sunshine and light airs, and looking at the forecast for the next few days, probably the best weather for a while. There was a steady trickle of birders throughout the morning paying homage to the wintering Long-tailed Duck and Slavonian Grebe, both of which were back on south lake along with half a dozen Goldeneyes and the usual common ducks and grebes. The Dartford Warbler was also reported in the gorse scrub beside the track, while we noted Green Woodpecker, Kestrel, Marsh Harrier, Cetti`s Warbler, Chiffchaff and Kingfisher across the site.

                                Lade sands without a bait digger in sight

  We completed the circuit back along the beach scanning the vast expanse of mud for distant waders at low tide, but what struck me more than anything else was the absence of bait diggers pumping for lugworms, or black lug as they`re known locally. On a day like today you would normally expect to see anything up to 20 blokes (I`ve yet to see a lady) scattered across the sands, pump in hand towing their storage trolleys behind looking for all the world like Antarctic explorers.
  Coincidently, back home I happened to bump into `Pete the Bait` one of the local pumpers and when asked about their absence said, "there ain`t any out there mate, had to go to Winchelsea beach last week, weren't many there either." He had no explanation for this apparent collapse in numbers of black lug.
   Now, I`m no expert but if you`ve got 20 pumpers each taking an average of say 100 worms a tide (which is probably a conservative estimate), so around 2,000 daily or 14,000 a week that's` a lot of worms. And then of course, and quite rightly so, around a thousand Curlews and Oystercatchers will be hunting them on a double tide, that weekly figure could easily total 20,000 black lug extracted in one way or another from the bay. Please feel free to correct me if you think I`m over estimating the extraction rates.
  So, Black Lugworm Arenicola defodiens is a finger-thick segmented marine worm (a bit like a fat earthworm) black in colour and can reach 10" long when mature and is highly prized as bait for fisherman, particularly if cod is your quarry. Such beasties can live for up to six years, are sexually mature at two and spend most of their lives in U-shaped burrowes under the sand.
  When I suggested to `Pete the Bait` that perhaps the current extraction rates are unsustainable (pumping is far more efficient than digging by the way) he poo-hooed me and blamed the birds!
Whatever has caused the collapse in Lade Bay Black Lug numbers it sure ain`t the waders.