Hundreds of thousands of mussels appeared cooked on a New Zealand beach on the country’s north island. The phenomenon is thought to have been caused by the combination of “an exceptional period of hot weather” with a low tide in the middle of the day, according to Andrew Jeffs, a marine researcher at the University of Auckland, in statements to the Guardian.
The discovery was made by inhabitants of the area, who were faced with a “bleak” scenario, with “more than 500 thousand empty shells” in the area.
“It smelled like death and most of the shells had not been cleaned by seagulls and other animals, but there were still hundreds of mussels dying and others already dead being carried by the current, adrift”, described Brandon Ferguson, one of the residents , the regional newspaperThe Northern Advocate.
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The North Island has been experiencing a drought with several parts of the region not seeing rain for more than 40 days. Mussels are not the only ones to suffer: the lack of water has affected the kiwi population, New Zealand’s emblematic birds, and even some more remote communities have been making requests for water supplies, faced with rainwater collection tanks. empty.
Researchers have been studying the difficulties of mussel populations in the face of climate change for a decade. Andrew Jeffs warns that climate change will make episodes of these increasingly frequent (a year ago, a similar situation happened in California) and that little or nothing can be done to protect the mussels. Bivalves are very important for the ecology of the New Zealand coast, but increasingly adverse conditions are threatening the coral reefs themselves. “We are going to lose them,” warned the investigator.
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