UBC marine ecologist Dr. Chris Harley initially told the media that more than a billion mussels, clams, sea stars and other invertebrates may have cooked to death in the area between Campbell River and Washington state. That was a ‘back of the envelope’ estimate, based on his observations among the Lower Mainland’s mussel population and some preliminary reports. Harley has done a great deal more research since then. He now guesstimates that, conservatively speaking, the number of marine fatalities during last June’s heat wave is closer to 10 billion.
Continue reading Heat wave killed far more marine animals than originally thought, says scientistTag Archives: Smelt Bay
Extreme marine heat events will devastate global fisheries in the coming decades
Extreme marine high temperature events, such as the one that killed more than a billion shellfish off the West Coast last June, will devastate global fisheries over the decades to come, a new UBC study suggests.
Continue reading Extreme marine heat events will devastate global fisheries in the coming decades
Heron Day on Cortes Island
CKTZ News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Cortes Island’s second annual Heron Day was Sunday, September 5th.
“Heron day is where we get a whole bunch of volunteers to go out in different spots around Cortes Island, at the same time, to count Heron,” explained Max Thaysen, President of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI). “If we have multiple eyes counting at the same time, then we know we are not double counting heron that are cruising around the island.”
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Stranded in the heat, sand, and rocks
There was a boat stranded in the sand, at Smelt Bay, on Saturday. The Woody Point’s anchor lay not too far distant, a testament to its owner’s original intention. The ocean was perhaps another hundred feet distant.
CKTZ News came to take pictures for another story. Thousands of mussels died on the exposed rocks at the southern side of the beach. They were presumably casualties of the heatwave that ravaged shellfish populations throughout the West Coast almost two weeks ago.
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Abnormally high number of Shellfish deaths on Cortes Island
CKTZ News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
In the midst of a heat wave that may have left as many as a billion dead marine creatures along the West Coast, there appears to have been an abnormally high number of shellfish deaths reported at a number of Cortes Island locations.
Daily temperature highs of between 35°C and 40°C were recorded, at the Cortes Island School, during the last five days of June.
Continue reading Abnormally high number of Shellfish deaths on Cortes Island