Heat Wave Causes a Massive Die-Off of Marine Animals

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  • extreme heat cooked mussels, clams, and other shellfish alive on beaches in Western Canada

  • countless dead mussels popped open and rotting in their shells at Kitsilano Beach

The devastating heatwave 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 says an article on CNN.

Massive Heatwave

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 heatwave that hit the area on June 26-28.

Billions dead from heat

Christopher Harley estimates that a billion mussels, clams, and other animals may have died from the heat. “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.'”
The next day, Harley and one of his students went to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver, which he has been visiting for more than 12 years. “It was a catastrophe over there,” he said. “There’s a really extensive mussel bed that coats the shore and most of those animals had died.”

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Source: CNN