Thousands of dead octopuses, starfish and other marine life wash up in Kamchatka, Russia
Thousands of dead octopuses, starfish and other sea creatures have recently washed up on the shores of the remote Russian peninsula of Kamchatka. The normally pristine waters surrounding Kamchatka have become discolored and developed an odd smell, say locals. Surfers say the water is mildly burning their eyes.
It turns out an unidentified pollution event may have spilled a slew of toxic chemicals into the water, according to recent news reports.
After reports from surfers and locals surfaced, divers confirmed a widespread mass die-off, and Greenpeace Russia called it an “ecological disaster,” according to The Guardian. Widely circulated photos and videos of the dead creatures sparked outcry from the public and speculation from local news outlets as to what could have caused it, CBS News reported.
The pollution seems to have badly hit the sea creatures that live at the bottom of the seafloor, wiping out as many as 95% of them in Kamchatka’s Avacha Bay, Ivan Usatov, a researcher at the Kronotsky Reserve and the Pacific Institute of Geography Kamchatka Gov. Vladimir Solodov, according to the Kamchatka government website. Usatov and other researchers studied the area around Avacha Bay by taking samples and diving to the sea-floor. “Some large fish, shrimps, crabs have survived, but in very small numbers,” Usatov said. But “the condition of marine mammals and birds is normal. On the shore, we also did not find any emissions of large dead sea animals, birds.”
It’s likely that this event severely disrupted the food chain as the animals that feed on those bottom-dwelling creatures will also die, the researchers said.
Last week, officials blamed the scores of dead animals on stormy weather. But a recent analysis of water samples revealed that it was contaminated with a number of potentially dangerous substances. The samples contained petroleum products, some of which were at levels that were four times above normal, Aleksei Kumarkov, the region’s acting Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology said, according to CBS News.
Courtesy of livescience.com
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