What if I told you the simple act of you driving down the road is killing coho salmon? No, you are not running them over. The emissions from your car are not harming them. Extracting oil from sea shelves is not harming them.
It is you tires.
Your tires. My tires.
Nearly everyone’s tires, are causing massive coho salmon die-off
events. These mortality events have been
occurring for many years on the West Coast.
Sometimes, as many as 90% of the salmon returning to spawn in the
waterways have perished.
Researchers at Washington State
University first noted two details associated with these high mortality
presentations. First, they occurred
following heavy rains. Secondly,
mortality rates were significantly higher near roadways.
The researchers, according to
an article written by Drew Kann for CNN, think they may have found the killing
agent.
"We believe that
6PPD-quinone is the primary causal toxicant for these observations of coho
salmon mortality in the field," said Ed Kolodziej, the lead investigator
for this study. "It's exciting to start to understand what is happening because
that starts to allow us to manage these problems more effectively."
The chemical antioxidant known
as 6PPD, used in tires to make them last longer.
As we drive down the road, our
tires breakdown, shedding bits of microplastics on roads, the 6PPD in them
reacts with ozone to become a different chemical -- a previously unreported
byproduct called 6PPD-quinone, scientists say.
Runoff from heavy rains carry
the chemical to the waterways.
This chemical is toxic to coho
salmon.
Hard as it was determining the
cause of the salmon mortality, finding ways to stop the cycle may prove more difficult.
Photo: NOAA
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