This article is typical of many I have seen on Canada in recent years: severed human feet keep washing ashore in western Canada.
In the article it is remarked that no foul play is suspected, and the feet are washing ashore as they are protected from scavengers by the shoes.
If this is true, shouldn’t feet be washing ashore on coastlines world-wide, and not just in Canada?
Most of these are found not in the open ocean but within the Salish Sea and are also found on the Washington side.
It is most likely more common here due to the cold water which prevents a lot of decomposition opportunities. This combined with a huge body of water contained within an enclosed area will result in them washing up.
In some cases it is the result of accidents but typically the remains are from successful suicides.
The officials statements like “I’m not able to speak to the reason” is a fairly good indicator that the death was self inflicted.
A more graphic description is below.
In warmer water, bacteria will cause the body to bloat and the entire corpse will rise to the surface. In colder water like in the Salish Sea the body will not float . Fish, crabs and sea lice will nibble away at the flesh until they finally dismember the foot and the foam in the shoe will cause it to float. The remainder of the body will never rise to the surface as it is consumed.
If that’s the case, why does it seem reports of feet washing ashore are a recent phenomenon? Shouldn’t feet have been washing ashore for decades and decades by this point?
Feet in leather shoes are less likely to float.
Vox has a good article on the phenomenon.
The feet come off the corpse as described above, because of sea life and normal decay… the shoe prevents the usual sea life and other decay processes from getting to the foot so it is moderately preserved, and inside a buoyant container.
IIRC, they’ve identified a number of the feet by DNA and they are usually missing people from the areas and possible suicides.
Also media attention increased after after speculation that the foot in 2007 was from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. There was talk about the plausibility of the foot having come from a tsunami victim, because that first reported shoe was distributed mainly in India. But it was from a missing local man suffering from depression.
After people were alerted to the possibility that shoes near water may be something more, so they then began looking in shoes which would have been just considered trash before.
You have a situation where the media is reporting finds more often and people are more likely to look at floating shoes. The only portion that is a recent phenomenon is the amount of media coverage and the attention people give to shoes on the shore. If you haven’t ever helped with a beach cleanup people would have just picked up the shoe and tossed it in a garbage bag without looking inside before the media attention.
As pdhenry mentioned, shoe materials and construction have changed and shoe market marketing also increased the amount of cushioning which will increase buoyancy.
Mix that with government officials reluctance to talk about cases of suicide producing an air of mystery and we end up where we are today.
Randall’s view on the mystery: xkcd: Mysteries
Makes it difficult to stand on guard.