Video shows salmon injured by unlivable water temperatures after heatwave

[Uncle Joe]

Salmon in the Columbia River were exposed to unlivable water temperatures that caused them to break out in angry red lesions and white fungus during the Pacific north-west’s record-shattering heatwave, according to a conservation group that has documented the disturbing sight.

In a video released on Tuesday by the non-profit organization Columbia Riverkeeper, a group of sockeye salmon swimming in a tributary of the river can be seen covered in injuries the group say are the results of stress and overheating.

The salmon had been traveling upstream in the Columbia River from the ocean, to return to their natal spawning areas, when they unexpectedly changed course, explained Brett VandenHeuvel, the executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. He described the sockeye as veering off to the Little White Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia River where the video was recorded, in an effort to essentially “escape a burning building”.

On the day the video was recorded, the river had hit just over 70F (21C), a lethal temperature for these anadromous fish if they are exposed to it for long periods. The Clean Water Act prohibits the Columbia River from rising over 68F (20C).

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/27/salmon-boiled-alive-pacific-north-west-heatwave-video#climate

[cilla4progress]

1. Hate to be brutal but

I look forward to the day when the animals and plans of this earth predominate over humans.

I'll just leave it at that.

[NickB79]

2. The problem is, we've kicked off a mass extinction event

We'll probably take 75% of the species on the planet with us. Mostly anything over 50 lb, if previous extinction events are a guide.

The survivors will be the "weed species". Starlings, crows, rats, coyotes, racoons, etc.

Thankfully life is persistent. In a few million years, maybe they'll have evolved to fill the empty niches. Eagle-crows in the skies. Giant herbivorous rat-bison roaming the prairies and forests, hunted by saber-toothed coyotes and bear-racoons.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I drove past an elementary school today and on the school sign out front

it had "If dinosaurs could read, they wouldn't be extinct."

Of course the dinosaurs survived for hundreds of millions of years in relative ignorance, while humans have just been around for an exceptionally brief period of time so it triggered me to wondering whether the power accumulated by our intelligence will save us or be our downfall?

Whichever is the case I believe our power is speeding up time so I hope and pray that wisdom most definitely catches up to our intellect.

[Chellee]

5. How would that have helped?

Headline: Jurassic Times Gazette, "Big Meteor Headed Towards Earth, Promises To Wipe Out Most Life, Scientists Say"

Dinosaur, reading the paper, sipping coffee: "Well, crap."

[Uncle Joe]

6. I believe the school was speculating that given as long as the dinosaurs

did survive had they been intelligent enough to read from relatively early on they could've colonized or expanded off Earth or been able to stop the asteroid which wiped them out.

By the same token if humans could survive for hundreds of millions of years, we could do the same.

The challenge is surviving for that long, that's what I meant in my previous post that our power and indeed domination was speeding up time as to a reckoning, it's a race against the clock.

[cilla4progress]

4. I appreciate your vision,

and share it precisely, in many ways.

Don't forget yellow jackets.