A while back, I posted a diary on a 2100 square mile dead zone of oxygen-free water off of the coast of Oregon.
It was caused by a weakening of southern winds that some have linked to global warming and to algae blooms produced by high levels of agricultural waste such as phosphorus and nitrogen that are also responsible for a similar 6300 square mile dead zone off of the Louisiana Coast.
Read on for details on a related phenomenon, this one occurring on the Brittany Coast in northern France.
With its rugged cliffs, temperate climate and sandy beaches, France's Brittany Coast is one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world.
It is also one of the most polluted.
Three days ago, a horse was killed and its rider lost consciousness while riding in the pastel bay at Saint-Michel-en-Grave.
The cause?
Methane and hydrogen sulfide gas emitted from rotting ulva algae, so-called sea lettuce that is common to estuaries in Brittany and the British Isles, but also in North America, Europe, China, Australia Record levels of the algae were produced this year in Brittany, but has been building up for decades as a result of high nitrates and phosphates from runoff from nearby pig and poultry farms and the widespread use of high nitrate fertilizers in local agriculture.
And here we pick up the story from the Associated Press...
On July 28, Petit, a 28-year-old researcher in a state-run virology lab, had just finished riding his thoroughbred Sir Glitter, a retired racehorse, on the Saint-Michel-en-Greves beach, when the two were suddenly mired in muck as he led the horse on foot in search of a place to cross a stream running through the sand.
"The horse and I slid in," said Petit, who is also trained in veterinary studies. "A horse in that situation is in an enormous panic, but he didn't have time to struggle."
Petit said he watched horrified as his horse stopped breathing and died within about 30 seconds, then he himself passed out. Petit was pulled from the mire by a bulldozer shovel after a man who witnessed the accident gave the alert.
.
According to the AP, Petit paid for a toxicology report that indicated that the horse:
Died of an acute pulmonary edema with symptoms "compatible with gaseous intoxication in a brutal manner," Petit said, quoting the report, which he paid for.
There was no foreign matter in the horse's throat, lungs or stomach and no sign of a heart attack, he said.
Lest you think this problem is localized to Brittany, researchers have discovered that the dramatic increase in ulva algae has destoyed diverse ecosystems from New Jersey to China due to its rapid absorption of nutrients and the inability of macroinvertibrates such as shrimp, mussels, crabs, etc. to survive in areas with high concentrations of the algae.
They have altered water chemistry, nearly eliminated large sections of their shallows as feeding zones of fish, arthropods, and birds (Baird and Milne, 1981; Hull, 1987; Raffaelli and Milne, 1987), and they have overgrown and killed mollusks and eelgrass.
The AP piece concludes by saying what many of us are slowly learning: We need to start re-thinking how we interact with our world. H1N1 flu, dead zones in our oceans, toxic beaches, and plastic garbage patches in the middle of the ocean are a symptomatic of problems as yet unresolved in our industrial and post-industrial world and emblemmatic of our need to rethink how we interact with the planet we call home.