Several people have fallen ill with food poisoning after eating shellfish in B.C. in the last 10 days, and health officials are warning that warm ocean waters might be to blame.

A marine biologist at the University of British Columbia estimates that last week's record-breaking heat wave in B.C. may have killed more than one billion intertidal animals living along the Salish Sea coastline.

A record-shattering heat wave June 26-28 coincided with some of the year's lowest tides on Puget Sound. The combination was lethal for millions of mussels, clams, oysters, sand dollars, barnacles, sea stars, moon snails, and other tideland creatures exposed to three afternoons of intense heat.