The extreme heatwave baked sea creatures in their shells in Western Canada

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The devastating heat wave that ravaged British Columbia last week is being blamed for a massive die-off of mussels, clams and other marine animals that live on the beaches of Western Canada.

Christopher Harley, a professor in the zoology department at The University of British Columbia, found countless dead mussels popped open and rotting in their shells on Sunday at Kitsilano Beach, which is a few blocks away from his Vancouver home.

Harley studies the effects of climate change on the ecology of rocky shores where clams, mussels and sea stars live, so he wanted to see how the intertidal invertebrates were faring in the record heat wave that hit the area on June 26-28.

"I could smell that beach before I got to it, because there was already a lot of dead animals from the previous day, which was not the hottest of three," he said. "I started having a look around just on my local beach and thought, 'Oh, this, this can't be good.'"

-snip-

Mussels attach themselves to rocks and other surfaces and are used to being exposed to the air and sunlight during low tide, Harley said, but they generally can't survive temperatures over 100 degrees for very long.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-extreme-heatwave-baked-sea-creatures-in-their-shells-in-western-canada/ar-AALZHez

[applegrove]

1. I worry about the plants too. The coast is supposed to be a type of rainforest.

Not this. It usually rains all summer in Vancouver I think.

[KT2000]

2. Commercial aquaculture

took a hit too. They may have to rethink the entire industry - I hope.

[Judi Lynn]

3. 'Heat dome' probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say

British Columbia scientist says heat essentially cooked mussels: ‘The shore doesn’t usually crunch when you walk’

Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Thu 8 Jul 2021 05.00 EDT

More than 1 billion marine animals along Canada’s Pacific coast are likely to have died from last week’s record heatwave, experts warn, highlighting the vulnerability of ecosystems unaccustomed to extreme temperatures.

The “heat dome” that settled over western Canada and the north-western US for five days pushed temperatures in communities along the coast to 40C (104F) – shattering longstanding records and offering little respite for days.

The intense and unrelenting heat is believed to have killed as many as 500 people in the province of British Columbia and contributed to the hundreds of wildfires currently burning across the province.

But experts fear it also had a devastating impact on marine life.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/08/heat-dome-canada-pacific-northwest-animal-deaths