Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

The study involved dozens of researchers poring over government records, nautical charts, fishery reports, customs documents, naturalists’ accounts, scientific journals and newspapers from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to piece together the spread of the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis).

They found vivid – and poignant – accounts of often sprawling reefs at 1,196 locations off countries including the UK, France, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. One report from a scientific article mentioned oyster reefs reaching 7 metres in height in the Black Sea.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    12·
    3 months ago

    meh, of course there are good people with good intentions, I am not doubting nor even talking about people’s propensity to help in a disaster, rather it is the suffocation of daily life in the US that thoroughly demonstrates the pathology of cruelty in the US.

    We hate homeless people, we dont give a shit about vets, we spit on people poorer than us and rationalize not feeling empathy for them precisely because they are poor… there are plenty of nice people in the US but a lot of them are addicted to exclusionary and hateful ideologies that effectively nullify their kindness except when society signals to them “this is a crisis”, which is ironic because the US has been drowning in crises my entire life, the suffering is just deemed invisible and not worthy of turning our empathy circuits on for.