Mass shellfish die off on West Coast

Roy L Hales/ CKTZ News - Close to a billion marine creatures may have perished in BC’s recent heat wave.

What happened?
“We had some of the hottest weather we’ve ever had and it happened to be on days with very low, low tides and that combination was pretty lethal for a lot of things,” explained Dr Chris Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia.

He said the one billion death estimate was obtained through calculations of mussel populations.

“The numbers are really large because there were a lot of mussels to start with,” he said.

Harley has been receiving numerous reports of marine life die-offs in the 650 kilometres of coastline, as the crow flies, between Klemtu, BC, and the Hood Canal, in northern Washington.

For many Cortes Island residents, the first they heard of these deaths may have been when local shellfish grower Erik Lyon was interviewed by the CBC. He reported losses of between 5% and 20% on a comparatively wet site in Desolation Sound, but expected to see higher mortality rates elsewhere.

There also appear to have been an abnormally high number of shellfish deaths at least two sites on Cortes Island.

Ricky Belanger, from the Discovery Passage Aquarium in Campbell River, reported seeing high numbers of dead cockles.

Harley said that mussels in the shade, or on a north facing surface, were probably okay. So were the oysters grown on rafts.

Large numbers clams, cockles and mussels perished on beaches.

Photo credit: Heat camera photo of mussels at 42 degrees celsius photo courtesy Dr Chris Harley