A Wigton couple out beach-walking discovered a rare fish on the sand – but got a shock when they tried to put it back in water!
It wasn’t quite a Jaws experience but Phil Cram was left with a painful reminder of his first sighting of a weever fish!
Phil and wife Christine were heading north between Beckfoot and Silloth on a beautiful autumn day, with the tide about full out.
It was Christine who spotted what looked like a dead fish on the sand but on closer inspection Phil decided that it was alive.
He recalls: “It was a strange looking thing, chubby, about 10cm long (the width of your hand) and with its eyes on the same side of its head.
“I suspected it was still alive and give it a gentle prod, at which it wriggled like a good ‘un.
“Thinking it was stranded and needing to go back in the water, I tried to pick it up, at which point I got a sharp sting in the wrist – a bite I thought.
“Christine, who had gloves on, managed to pick it up on a scoop of wet sand and she plopped it back into one of the streams which cross the beach.
“Later, we looked it up. It turns out it was a weever fish– a species which live both in and out of water. I obviously had not been bitten but stung by its spiny dorsal.
“These stings can apparently be very nasty and very painful. The one I got drew blood but the pain was no more than a pin prick – so I reckon I got only a half dose.
“Weever fish are a warm water European species and are becoming common in British waters (global warming I suspect), especially in Devon/Cornwall and along the south coast.
“Warnings have been put out that people should not walk the beaches in Devon/Cornwall in bare feet because they may tread on a weever fish and suffer for it.
“I’d never heard the warning – and, to be honest, had never heard of a weever fish. Apparently there are several types of weever fish. We think the one we came across was a lesser weever – though when it stung me, I called it something else.”
Weevers belong to the same family as sharks.
Weever doesn’t quite have the same ring as ‘Jaws’ but if you happen to have Steven Spielberg’s phone number, he might be interested in another sequel!
