Posts

Showing posts from October 22, 2008

Fish Die-off Happening!

Image
Have been seeing and hearing accounts of dead fish either washing up onto beaches, been seen floating around, sick fish swimming around and dead fish lying on the sea floor. Grouper, parrotfish, hogfish, angelfish, porgys, tomtates and squirrelfish have been mentioned, but perhaps others are affected as well. Affected fish have been seen from Franks Bay to St. Davids and out to North Rock - so it appears to be platform-wide. The cause is as yet unknown, but may be a dinoflagellate or other kind of toxic algae. Like CSI, scientists at the Department of Conservation Services are collecting dying (but not dead) fish to try to determine the cause. Already dead fish grow too many other kinds of bacteria to be useful for determining the cause of the illness. Sightings of unusual looking dead fish can be recorded at: fishkill(at)bermudabream.org