• Environmental

  Algae bloom in Russian Far East threatens sea otters and devastates marine life

  Posted by Unknown Member on 18 October 2020 at 5:10 am

  Surfers on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, in the far east started to report nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever after surfing in the water of the Khalaktyrskiy beach on the Kamchatka Peninsula, leading to 16 people taken to hospital, where several people were diagnosed with corneal burns.

  Around the same time mounds of lifeless sea urchins and starfish were washing up on Kamchatka’s eastern shores, whilst beach walkers picked up limp red octopuses by their tentacles.

  A patch of fetid yellowish foam hundreds of feet wide and several miles long was observed floating down the coast. Divers surveying the sea bed estimated that in some places, 95 percent of bottom-dwelling organisms had perished after the foam had passed through the area.

  The problem has spread southwest, around the peninsula and up the food chain. Thousands of dead fish, mostly bottom feeders, were found washed up on Kamchatka’s western shore this week, and reports that several brown bears suffered severe food poisoning after eating them, just one example of the potential chain effects this mass marine life die-off could cause.

  While many initially suspected pollution, scientists now say the deaths were probably caused by the algal bloom which is affecting one of the planet’s most bio diverse marine environments, home to endangered species such as steel head trout and sea otters.

  Kamchatka has the highest concentration of active volcanoes on Earth. Rivers cascade from these lava fields and glaciers into broad marshes and form the perfect spawning grounds for six species of ocean-going salmon, which in turn provide food for brown bears, spotted seals, orcas, and decreasing numbers of Stellers sea eagles and Steller’s sea lions. The salmon often feed on zooplankton in the nutrient-rich Kamchatka waters, as do gray whales and the critically endangered right whales.

  Scientists quickly excluded volcanic activity as the cause of the marine die-off, samples taken at Khalaktyrskiy Beach found that levels of phenol, iron, oil products, phosphate ions, and mercury were several times higher than normal. But none of these concentrations are large enough to explain the sweeping die-off.

  When scientists flew over the coast looking for clues. They spotted swaths of yellow, green, and red water suggestive of an algal bloom. These microscopic phytoplankton produce as much as half the world’s oxygen, but certain species can grow out of control when nutrients in runoff “overfeed” them or water temperatures increase.

  When this happens, they emit toxins and deplete oxygen levels in the water as they die and begin decomposing on the seafloor. That could explain the high mortality among Kamchatka’s bottom-dwellers.

  Algal blooms are not uncommon in Kamchatka. This presumed event, however, was more extensive and longer lasting than any in recent memory, it is hoped that with the ocean waters mixing this will quickly clear the water of contamination.

  Unknown Member replied 4 years, 2 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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