Thousands of dead fish washing up on beaches of Texas

thousands-of-dead-fish-washing-up-on-beaches-of-texas

Thousands of dead fish, most of them Gulf Menhaden, or shad fish, are washing ashore along the Texas coast, from the Colorado River to Galveston Island. Crews went to work on Monday, August 13, 2012 to remove them.

And while biologists with the Parks and Wildlife Department began testing pH, saline and oxygen levels in water samples taken along the coast the authorities said the answer to question what caused it is not very simple.

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”When something’s affecting one then usually a lot of them are being affected at the same time because it’s such a big group together,” said Steven Mitchell of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

He suspects low oxygen in the water is a problem. However, he won’t know for sure until biologists are able to test water up to 10 miles offshore. That could take several days.

Peter Davis of the Galveston Island Beach Patrol estimated hundreds of thousands of fish have died.

Galveston County health officials said the water is fine for beachgoers.

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6 Comments

  1. Screw it, I’m in.

    How long will it take to develop a nasty skin rash and respiratory problems, thus becoming an award of the state medical program courtesy of US tax payers?

  2. Doesn’t mean any thing to me. What’s a few dead fish. I’ll just tuff it out in the water like the Olympians do. We came here for a good time, not gonna let a lil thing like this wreck our day. With all the stuff dying in the waters now and washing ashore, ya fuck it, lets go for a swim, nothing is going on anyway.
    hmm, warm water huh?. Wonder about the chemicals they have been putting in the Gulf since the BP oil spill (which is still leaking). Cortex, Santhia, what ever. These guys are genius’s and I trust them totally, so no way can’t be that. There is no methane release, or Louisiana sink holes appearing, massive hydrate release, oxygen depletion. Fukishima never happened. Lets go for a swim, forget all this crap.

      1. Well, Danika, that’s how people are these days as they live for the moment. I have discussed this subject(s) ’til I am blue in the face only to find myself frustrated by end of day with ridicule.

        I discovered many years ago that it is truly each man for himself to deal with the epiphanies later rather than the impatient sooner. It is a collective mess we are dealing with at the moment on a global scale.

        I have learned to cope with the collective mess one at a time to better understand the big picture. Some people bloviate to hear themselves talk, but fail at deductive/inductive reasoning.

      2. I totally agree. People are become way too apathetic. I can’t imagine going to the beach or in water, with thousands of dead fish. I would have been upset by that as well.

  3. I’ve used shad as bait to fish Bartlett Lake in Arizona and I will agree that they are hypersensitive to anything and die easily. The ongoing joke with my fishing buddies was ‘simpily’ looking at them and they would die.

    I recall hearing the schooling shad run the shallow water of the lake late at night and your first thought upon hearing them would by of a low frequency similar to a propeller from a boat on low speed. Shad in lake waters stay close to the shore for protection from predators.

    That posted, there is a much more sinister situation taking place in the coastal waters of Texas for such a large fish-kill e.g., oil spillage, lack of oxygen, drastic warm water temp changes, limnic overturn or volcanism(?)

    Your guess is as good as mine with all the disturbing events taking place globally.

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