Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Ashore on Texas Coast (USA) Over the Weekend, Leaving Residents and Scientists Perplexed.
Dead fish cover Quintana Beach. (Photo: Getty Images).
According to Business Insider, fish carcasses stretched for kilometers along the Texas Gulf Coast, covering both the beach and the shallow waters near the shore.
A Facebook post from the Quintana Beach County parks department on June 10 indicated that the mass fish die-off was due to low oxygen levels in the water caused by rising summer temperatures.
Quintana Beach County is a popular destination, attracting many tourists and campers. The park has received dozens of online inquiries from confused visitors wondering what was happening.
Shallow waters also filled with dead fish. (Photo: Getty Images).
Most of the dead fish are menhaden, a small fish commonly used as bait. The carcasses were decomposing, with some remaining only as fragments of bones.
The Facebook post explained: “When water temperatures rise above 21 degrees Celsius, menhaden struggle to get enough oxygen to survive. Shallow warm waters heat up faster than deeper waters, so if a school of menhaden gets trapped in shallow water as it begins to warm, the fish will suffer from low oxygen levels.”
About 10 kilometers southwest of Quintana Beach County, videos showed thousands of dead fish covering the waters off Bryan Beach. A fisherman reported seeing dead fish 16 kilometers offshore.
Dead rays on Quintana Beach. (Photo: Getty Images).
Julia Wellner, a marine geologist at the University of Houston, tweeted on June 11 that she and a team of sedimentologists were baffled upon encountering the fish carcasses. She wrote: “We walked for kilometers. Definitely due to low oxygen, but why here and now? Why so catastrophic? A scary future.”
By the evening of June 11, teams had nearly cleared the pedestrian beach area at Quintana.
Quintana Beach County stated: “There is NO evidence of chemical discharge in any form, so please disregard those theories and do not spread misinformation.”
Earlier, in March, millions of fish died in a river in New South Wales (Australia) due to low oxygen levels. The dead fish washed ashore following a heatwave that swept through the area.
Fish die-offs sometimes occur along the U.S. coast due to algal blooms when bacteria toxic to fish proliferate rapidly. Although algal blooms can occur naturally year-round, they have been growing more frequent and severe due to climate change.
