Like “Post-apocalyptic films”: the heat wave massively killed marine life

Dead mussels and clams covered the rocks of the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping as if they had been boiled. The starfish have been cooked to death. Sockeye salmon swam slowly in an overheated Idaho river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas.

The combination of extraordinary heat and drought that hit the western United States and Canada over the past two weeks has killed hundreds of millions of marine animals and continues to threaten countless species of seafood. freshwater, according to a preliminary estimate and interviews with scientists.

“It sounds like one of those post-apocalyptic movies,” said Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia who studies the effects of climate change on coastal marine ecosystems and who has calculated the number of dead.


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