Approximately one billion sea animals have been cooked to death off the Canadian coast in one of the highest heat waves experienced in recent times in the Pacific Northwest.
Hundreds of people lost their lives during this heat wave. Now a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia has estimated that billions of sea creatures known as mussels as well as other marine animals. These creatures died along the Salish Sea off Vancouver.
The sea creatures died along the stretches from the Campbell River to the north of Vancouver all the way down to Seattle as well as Olympia in Washington state.
People witnessed endless rows of dead mussels, snails, clams, barnacles and sea stars along Kitsilano Beach. Many people were stuned by this sight.
The mussels are the most vulnerable sea creatures which tell us that all is not well in the sea. They are vulnerable considering they are not able to move to cooler waters in the sea.
“A mussel on the shore in some ways is like a toddler left in a car on a hot day,” Harley told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “They are stuck there until the parent comes back or, in this case, the tide comes back in. They’re at the mercy of the environment … during the heat wave, it just got so hot that the mussels, there was nothing they could do.”
Mussels are known to tolerate high temperatures (86 degrees Fahrenheit) for shorter periods of time. Scientists recorded temperatures as high as 122 degrees along the shore of the Salish Sea.
The massive death of sea creatures has an impact on the environment. Mussels are known to have a function of filtering water to make it clean. They are an important diet for ducks and starfish.
“They grab plankton that’s floating around in the water and use it to grow, and then they feed other things on the shore so they sort of connect the open water habitat to the shoreline,” Harley explained to the Toronto Star.
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