The record heat of these days has literally cooked marine animals on the beaches of the United States and Canada
The record heat of these days literally cooked marine animals on the beaches of the United States and Canada, while many young falcons jump out of their nests to try to escape the high temperatures.
The record heat, combined with one of the lowest tides of the year, is literally cooking alive the small animals that populate the beach of Puget Sound (Washington): This mix has proved lethal to millions of shellfish, oysters, starfish, clams and other sea creatures.
On the one hand, three days (June 26-28) which recorded record temperatures on the beaches (up to 57 ° C), on the other one of the lowest tides of all time that did not offer refreshment to animals weakened by the scorching heat . Biologists realized that something was wrong when they spotted vultures wandering along the coast, attracted by dead animals, and a smell similar to that of barbecued fish: mollusks and other sea creatures had been literally cooked by the heat.
Unfortunately, mollusks are extremely heat sensitive animals, which open their shells on the beach, revealing the bare, defenseless flesh inside them: most of these were found just like that, opened, by volunteers - all dead.
It seems to be in a post-apocalyptic movie - he tells the NYT Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia who is studying the effects of climate change on marine life and who has estimated a loss of hundreds of millions of molluscs due to this heat wave. - The more I went on, the more I saw dead animals, and the more distressing the situation was. However, we need to find optimism and positivity to better face this situation which, at the moment, appears rather dramatic: if we get depressed and let ourselves be overwhelmed by despair, we will not continue in the effort to find a solution to this problem.
(Read also: Record heat: the worst predictions made by scientists are coming true)
In fact, these extreme weather phenomena become more and more frequent and intense as the climate crisis - caused by the excessive use of fossil fuels - mercilessly hits the animal world, but also ours: hundreds of people have in fact died in the Northeast Pacific (United States and Canada) due to the incredible heat that recorded temperatures of 50 ° C. the hood also undermined the health of the young falcons, who were seen throwing themselves by the dozen from their nests in a desperate attempt to counter the heat.
The Blue Mountain Wildlife Rehabilitation Center has treated more than 50 too young to fly falcons that have leapt down from their nests to escape the heat. 13 of these, unfortunately, were killed because the injuries they had sustained were too serious to be treated, while they resumed a normal life thanks to the care of the volunteers.
We just have to share these adorable fluffy legs on this merlin (falcon) chick. The pink wrap is our velcro weigh belt so we can get an intake weight and make sure he is gaining appropriately during care. He is growing up with foster siblings and will be released to the wild pic.twitter.com/5Y7hqPIsqG
— OWL Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (@OWLRehab) July 10, 2021
Fonti: New York Times Kuow OregonLive
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