Endangered salmon scorched to death in river during US heatwave

Endangered salmon in America’s northwest are being baked alive, as manmade dams and the US heatwave have made their river too hot to survive in.

The fish have developed lesions and a white fungus, a sign of thermal stress, after record-breaking torrid weather swept over the region.

The temperature in the Columbia River of 71F has exceeded the legal limit of 68, which scientists set to protect salmon from unsafe temperatures.

And conservationists are warning the tens of thousands of sockeye salmon remaining in the “dangerously warm” rivers could die as the waters grow even hotter in the next two months.