A Warm Ocean Blob Caused A Million Seabirds To Die In One Year

Posted On January 19, 2020

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There is blood in the water along the Pacific Ocean caused by a ‘warm blob.’ The warm ocean blob is the main culprit that killed 1 million seabirds along the west coast. This information is according to a study published by the scientific journal Plus One.

What is a ‘warm blob’? It’s basically a heatwave in the ocean that spans 1,000 miles long and 300 feet deep. From 2015 to 2016 the warm ocean blob disrupted the food chain affecting salmon, cod, and murres.

The study says 62,000 dead or dying common murres washed ashore up and down the coastline in a one year span. Leading scientists say that total could be closer to 1 million ‘murres’ in total.

Researchers say that the warmer ocean temperatures created greater competition for food causing the ‘murres’ to starve to death. Since the water was so warm it sped up the metabolism in salmon, cod, and halibut. In turn, the fish were hungrier and ate more food gobbling up herring, anchovies and sardines. Unfortunately ‘murres’ have the same diet and there just wasn’t enough food to go around.

Julia Parrish co-author of the statement put it like this; “Think of it as a run on the grocery store at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores stopped coming so often.

Lead author John Platt a research biologist had this to say about the situation.

“The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent. It was astonishing and alarming, and a red flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.

The statement says common murres nest in colonies on cliffs overlooking the ocean. Black with white bellies, adult murres can dive more than 200 yards beneath the surface in search of food.