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Subscribe to RSSExperts believe a lack of oxygen caused thousands of dead menhaden to wash up on a South Carolina shore. WMBF's Ken Baker reports.
Thousands of dead fish washed up on a mile and a half stretch of beach in South Carolina Tuesday, officials said, at least the second such occurrence in the region in a week.
Roughly 30,000 to 40,000 menhaden fish, 6 to 8 inches long, were spread along the shore from DeBordieu Beach in Georgetown County, S.C., to Pawleys Island, a town on the state's Atlantic Coast, and thousands more were expected, Pawleys Island Police Chief Michael Fanning said.
Similar incidents have happened in the area before, including late last week when hundreds of thousands of the small, oily fish were washed ashore near Masonboro Island, N.C., and last year when an influx of dead starfish were found on the same beaches.
The fish were first spotted by beachgoers taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather.
"We came down to the beach for the day just to have, you know, a nice day on the beach, smell the fish smell, came down to look for shells and all these fish -- dead," Pawleys Island resident Pat Hawkins told NBC station WMBF in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "It's a shame. I don't know what's causing it."
Officials from the Department of Health and Environmental Control and the Department of Natural Resources visited the area Tuesday and took water samples in an effort to determine what killed the fish.
Marine experts determined the fish died from hypoxia, which occurs when the amount of oxygen in the water drops.
Pawleys Island Police
Thousands of dead fish washed up on a Pawleys Island, S.C., beach Tuesday afternoon.
Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, said the occurrence was an entirely natural event.
“On Friday we had a new moon (which caused) real high high tides and real low low tides,” Bell told The Sun News. “Probably what happened was a school (of menhaden) got in an area of water on a high tide, in a hole or depression, and at low tide they were trapped and depleted the oxygen in the water. Then, all the fish would suffocate. Then, when the tide came back in, it washed the dead fish out and they washed up on the beach.”
"When it's one species like that, that's usually indicative of a low dissolved oxygen situation because they tend to be more fragile," added Dan Hitchcock, an assistant professor at the Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science at Clemson University in Georgetown, S.C.
Fanning said the city has no plans to clean up the fish and will let the seagulls and the tide clear the sand.
“We’re just dealing with it as a force of nature," Fanning said. "There are some residual fish, most of it has gotten washed away, there were a ton of birds down there. If you went down there (Thursday), you’d get more birds than fish.”
Menhaden fish, typically used by fishermen as bait, are a small, silver fish, whose oil is used in vitamin supplements, lipstick and livestock feed.
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Maybe they dumped some of those flu shots into the ocean.
I've noticed around these events - an Earthquake occurs afterwards. Who knows.
Note: This was NOT an act of God, this was the fault of Mother Nature. Sort of like prize fighters never blame God for their losses... but they DO Credit and Thank Him for a Win.
O.M.G.!!!!! ANOTHER DERANGED SCUBA DIVER WITH & AUTOMATIC WEAPON!!!! WHAT NEXT?
Nice! God answered the seagull's prayers!!
Let's re-name Casy Anthony beach!
I think they were all scared to death by 12 round magazines. I am sure of it.
On the plus side, I bet the new Sandy bill just got some more pork stuffed into it.
Government did it!
"Save the Liver"
Julia Childs
Makes me sad to see dead creatures. They look so helpless.
Do you get sad when you go to the supermarket?
Lol, supermarkets must be like funeral parlors.
Not as sad as when I see thousands of washed-up fish who will not have the chance to nourish somebody.
I just thought scientist need to look at the movement of land under where it happened. Maybe a sign of earthquake is coming. some opening might produce carbon dioxide or sulphur or sudden high pitch vibration from under. just a thought.
Cant believe people here are still up for Al Gore when he just sold his company to a big oil company for 100 million. Al is my hero though. Made so much money off lies. The only other person that could achieve such things is the lord Obama.
Oh that's what Smelt.
Father everyone eat the sheep, goat, cow, chicken, lamb, and all the fish rott on shore what shall I do? I have an idea we eat fish on friday son.
interesting how republicans on this forum are making fun of al gore or the global warming explanation. lets look at republican ideas that never came to be.
The U.S. military's first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon
CBO previously concluded that extending only the so-called “middle class” tax cuts on income below $250,000, instead of extending all of the tax cuts, would “be more cost-effective in boosting output and employment in the short run because the higher-income households that would probably spend a smaller fraction of any increase in their after-tax income would receive a smaller share of the reduction in taxes (relative to current law).”
thay died from all the bull shhit come down from washington d.c..from the 1/2 black king....
and the great government cover ups again as they test their new weapons of mass destruction,,Got to love when you see prophetic words coming to pass and idiot people can't see for nothing, they only hear when death strikes children. Soon like in Japan, they will test these weapons on people again, they must of just missed their real mark this time..LOL
Somethings fishy.
It's HAARP!!! Wake up! Check it out. HAARP is doing this.
The Navy is using their advaces sonar weapons again..
Same thing used to happen in the great lakes. Shad came through the St Lawrence Seaway and died by the millions in fresh water and washed up on the beach. You could smell them for miles inland.
Stocked the lakes with Salmon and the Salmon ate the shad, we caught the salmon and ate them. Food chain story.
I suspect over fishing by some nationalities of the larger fish, therefore not eating the smaller fish and they die and wash up.
Also, a very deadly polluting of the ocean going on right now and could be causing their deaths. Both problems exist.
Alewives are perhaps best known for their invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Alewives colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. They reached their peak abundance by the 1950s and 1980s. Alewives grew in number unchecked because of the lack of a top predator in the lakes (lake trout were essentially wiped out around the same time by overfishing and the invasion of the sea lamprey). For a time, alewives, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in windrows on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Their control was the impetus for the introduction of various Pacific salmon species (first coho, and later the Chinook salmon) to act as predators on them. This caused the development of a salmon/alewife fish community, popular with many sport anglers. Alewives, however, have been implicated in the decline of many native Great Lakes species through competition and predation.
Yeah, thats what I just said a hole.
This wouldnt happen if we would just ban all the guns. Check the fish for bulletholes
It's the 7th seal, we are doomed. Repent now!!!!
Not sure how far these fish swim or how the currents move, but between the oil spill in the gulf and the nuclear melt down in Japan I wonder if the fish have been tested?
Officials from the Department of Health and Environmental Control and the Department of Natural Resources visited the area Tuesday and took water samples in an effort to determine what killed the fish.
Marine experts determined the fish died from hypoxia, which occurs when the amount of oxygen in the water drops.
** Yet another person who didn't read past the headline..
Here's what people in this Bible Belt part of America will believe:
"Give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day. Tell him where he can take a romantic stroll down on the beach and he can feed himself for a lifetime.
Teach him how to weld and he can get his dead asz off of welfare and make a living anywhere in the world.