A record-breaking heat wave affecting the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada has cooked millions of mussels, clams and other sea creatures alive. "The first thing I noticed as I was walking down to the beach was that it smelled quite terrible," Alyssa Gehman, who studies marine ecology community, told USA TODAY. "There was a rotting baking shellfish smell." As she came across the edge of the water, she noticed beds of dead mussels on the beach and dead crabs floating by. Marine ecologist Christopher Harley said it looked like "an ecological catastrophe." "[Mussels] can survive temperatures that are pretty similar to the same temperatures that humans can survive up to a little over 100 degrees," Harley said. "But we were measuring temperatures on the shore above 120, so it was much hotter than anything they could handle." #pacificnorthwest #heatwaves #marinelife #pnwheatwave2021