Excessive heat is bad for health, and not just for humans. The intense temperatures recorded during the month of July also overwhelmed some animal species, including the fish from the lagoons of Orbetello, one of the most important fish farms in Tuscany and Italy. The balance is worthy of a massacre: two hundred tons of sea bream, mullet and lagoon eels died in three days due to the record heat.
According to Coldiretti, which also sounds the alarm on other farm animals such as cows, pigs and hens, innocent victims of a heat that has made them inappetent and not very productive, with significant consequences on the production of milk, meat and eggs, is a sign of how climate change can already affect our lives and our economy.
In fact, the damage for the farmers of Orbetello is currently estimated at ten million euros, equal to 80% of the fish production of the lagoon in which the town is located, a few kilometers from the Argentario. The damage would be mainly related to the death of millions of fry, the young of the fish, which in a year and a half would have represented the bulk of the catch. But the waters of the lagoon are only a meter deep and are already very rich in algae that reduce dissolved oxygen. And it was precisely in July, precisely in the Argentario area, that the hottest temperatures were recorded in the whole Mediterranean, even higher than those in North Africa.
For this the lagoon has reached the temperature of 34 degrees. This further reduced the amount of oxygen, because the solubility of gases in water decreases as the temperature increases. And sea bream, mullet and eels, and their young, have stopped breathing. Countermeasures such as adding fresh water have been tried. But that wasn't enough. Probably, experts explain today, it would have been appropriate to pump oxygen into the water, as is done in farms: an operation that would not have changed the temperature, but would have saved the fish and preserved the lagoon for years to come.
