Algae growth suspected in wild boar deaths along French coast
Environmentalists believe the potentially fatal algae in Brittany, a popular holiday destination, is the result of a nitrate buildup from fertilizers seeping into the sea.
By Kim Willsher, Los Angeles Times
July 28, 2011, 5:23 p.m.
Reporting from Paris?
Just as France's holiday season reaches its peak, the carcasses of wild boars are appearing on Brittany's celebrated coastline, raising fear that a potentially lethal algae is at work that could threaten the health of humans as well.
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Scientists say that when the weed, in itself harmless, is washed onto the beach, the surface dries in the sun, forming a hard crust under which hydrogen sulfide, a foul-smelling and poisonous gas, is trapped. When the surface is broken, the gas, with its characteristic smell of rotten eggs, is released.
In 2009 a 27-year-old horse rider fell unconscious and his horse collapsed after slipping on the algae on a beach at Hillion in Brittany. The animal was believed to have died after inhaling gas released by the weed. The rider, a local veterinarian, was rescued from a yard-high pile of rotting algae.
An inquiry is still underway in the death of a man who suffered a heart attack while transporting rotten seaweed in a truck in 2009....
