Millions of other animals may have perished too, suggesting the die-off event might be one of the worst in modern times.
The tall, stony coastlines of the northeast Pacific Ocean are much quieter than they were just a decade ago. Following a punishing marine heat wave in the region, the raucous seabird colonies that once crowded the sea cliffs are now greatly thinned, to a quarter of their former size in some places., and probably many other animals, may be the largest wildlife mortality event recorded in modern times, researchers report in the Dec.
“We knew right away that it was a big catastrophe,” Renner says. “There were 62,000 carcasses that washed up on the beaches, all over the Gulf of Alaska, all the way down to California. It was clearly a big deal, but we couldn’t really quantify the size of the mortality very well.” Renner and her colleagues estimate that the heat wave killed 4 million murres between the Gulf of Alaska and Eastern Bering Sea. Roughly half the region’s murres died during a single winter.She and her team suggest the loss is the largest die-off of wildlife, specifically nonfish vertebrates, yet reported in the modern era.
Renner says she doesn’t think climatic impacts spurring such a dramatic, swift shift has been previously documented. The findings show such intense changes can occur on the scale of years.Tye and Renner both point out that with continued climate warming, heat waves like the Blob are expected to occur more frequently. This could imperil already vulnerable populations of many animals that have yet to recover in an ocean ecosystem reeling from the previous heat wave.
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