NZ - Hundreds Of Thousands Of Mussels Cooked In Their Shells By Low Tide, Extreme Heat
Hundreds of thousands of mussels have been cooked to death on a beach in New Zealand’s North Island, with experts saying more will die as the effects of the climate crisis accelerate. The mass die-off in Northland was sparked by “an exceptional period of warm weather” combined with low tides in the middle of the day, which had exposed the shellfish, said Dr Andrew Jeffs, a marine scientist from the University of Auckland.
He said more marine life would soon be affected by climate change, and there was little that that could be done to protect the vulnerable shellfish, other than manual protection measures such as shadecloth, which were impractical and “unrealistic”.
Northland is experiencing drought conditions, with many parts of the region not seeing rain for a record-breaking 40 plus days. The effects of the drought have been severe, with Kiwi birds perishing as they search for water, and tankers of freshwater urgently trucked in to fill rainwater tanks in remote communities. Exposed at a time of day when the sun was at its most intense, hundreds of beds of mussels had been “cooked” by the sun, Jeffs said.
Scientists had observed mussels suffering under changing weather conditions for a decade, but conditions were now getting more intense and devastating for the animals. “I think we’re going to see entire communities of marine creatures change,” said Jeffs.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/hundreds-of-thousands-of-mussels-cooked-to-death-on-new-zealand-beach-in-heatwave
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