Thousands of dead fish, crabs, eels and other marine life wash up, ‘never seen before’, on the shores of South Florida’s Biscayne Bay, USA #Fish #Crabs #eels #Octopus#Shrimp #Florida #BiscayneBay #USA

Thousands of dead fish and other sea life washed up this week on the shores of South Florida’s Biscayne Bay.

The fish kill was first reported on Monday. Members of Miami Waterkeeper, an advocacy group, saw about a dozen dead fish when they went out to conduct weekly water sampling. Then reports of dead fish, shrimp, crab, eels, octopus and other animals came in from North Miami to Virginia Key.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” local resident Kathryn Mikesell told New Times. She has swam in the bay at least three mornings a week for five years.

Researchers and government agencies are still investigating the cause, but indicators point to very warm water temperatures and low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water, according to a news release from Miami Waterkeeper.

“It’s an emergency. The bay is not in a good place right now,” Piero Gardinali, an associate professor at Florida International University who is helping investigate the fish kill, told New Times. “It’s a warning sign.”

In addition to the dead fish, a large group of rays, believed to be struggling to breathe, huddled along the shoreline near the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, a bird rescue and rehabilitation facility on Biscayne Bay. Personnel from a nearby science aquarium used soaker hoses and air pumps to aerate the corner of the bay where the rays had taken refuge to save them.

Fish and other underwater marine life rely on dissolved oxygen in the water to survive. Warm waters bring those levels down. The Waterkeeper noted very high water temperatures of about 90 degrees in the area where the fish kill was first discovered.

Algae blooms can also cause low oxygen levels, but the Waterkeeper said in an update Thursday that there was no evidence of a toxic bloom. They think an ongoing die-off of sea grass, which produces oxygen, could be a main factor that led to the fish kill.

More than 20 square miles of seagrass has disappeared from the bay in recent years, according to the Waterkeeper. A study last year from NOAA warned that the bay’s ecosystem was on the verge of a “regime shift”. The study found increasing levels of nutrients in the water, which causes numerous impacts that are detrimental to marine habitats.

“We are passing a tipping point for the bay not being able to support any life – literally overnight, the bay became a dead zone,” Miami Waterkeeper said of this week’s fish kill.

“This event is not a ‘normal occurrence,’ but rather a sign that something is seriously out of balance in our bay.”

Courtesy of weather.com

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Thousands of dead fish and crabs wash up in a lake in Kucukcekmece, Turkey #Fish Crabs #Küçükçekmece #Turkey

Thousands of fish and crabs that died in the Küçükçekmece Lake that have not been determined yet have hit the shore.

Citizens and fishermen, who say that similar incidents happen every year, noted that recent fish deaths are higher than in recent years.

Some fishermen gather the dying fish and throw them into the sea with their boats.

Istanbul Agriculture and Forestry Manager Ahmet Yavuz Karaca , in a statement to the AA reporter, stated that they sent a team on pollution and fish deaths in the lake and said, “We took samples from dead fish and water and sent them to the laboratory. We will share them when the results are announced. times we can say that deaths are more. ” said.

Emin Şence, who has been fishing for many years, said that the primary cause of mass fish deaths is pollution and lack of oxygen in the lake.

Courtesy of aa.com.tr

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Thousands of dead fish, crabs and shrimps found in Murcia, Spain

THE Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia is in a ‘critical condition’ following the devastating Gota Fria floods, the regional government has warned.

Thousands of fish and crustaceans have died after suffocating due to the change in the water’s properties following last month’s flooding.

According to the regional environment minister, Antonio Luengo, scientists and experts are desperately trying to find ways to inject oxygen into the coastal lagoon, which is the largest of its kind in Europe.

It comes after 60 hectometres of fresh water carrying sediments poured into the Mar Menor, leaving the lower layers without oxygen.

This so-called ‘dead water’ now spreads over 210 hectares.

Jose Garcia Varias from the World Wildlife Foundation tweeted: “Thousands of fishes, crabs, shrimps dead in Mar Menor (Murcia), the biggest coastal lagoon in Europe.

“The situation right now is critical, fishers association of SSF has decided to close the fisheries, thousands of European eels are dead in the coast line (an endangered species which finds refuge in the Mar Menor).”

Courtesy of theolivepress.es

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Thousands of dead #fish, #catfish, #crabs found in a canal in #NewOrleans, #USA

State wildlife experts are investigating a large fish kill at Myrtle Grove. Thousands of dead pogies, catfish and crab surfaced at the canal, and the boat launch all day, just days after Hurricane Barry’s storm surge moved out.

First it was Barry and the floods that followed. Now fishermen in this prime area are having to deal with a smelly large fish kill at a popular boat launch.

Pearl Young, who has fished the Myrtle Grove marina for years, said she didn’t like what she saw today, or smelled.

She fished right off the dock and had little luck, while others went farther out to find clean water.

The fish kill comes just days after Hurricane Barry pushed storm surge into this area. Huge sandbags used to shore up the levee are visible from the launch and many say it’s not unusual to see dead fish like this after tropical weather.

Thousands of pungent-smelling dead fish were visible hundreds of yards from the launch, but fishermen went out anyway to try their luck and checked their spots.

The fish kill created a feeding frenzy for seagulls.

Courtesy of fox8live.com

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Hundreds of dead #crabs found on the coast of #Tuxpan, #Mexico

Hundreds of crabs found dead on the beach.

Courtesy of laopinion.net

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Hundreds of crabs wash up dead on Collier, Lee County beaches in Florida, USA

A dead crab washes up onshore at Bonita Beach on Sept. 26, 2018 – Jake Allen/Naples Daily News

Crabs are the latest casualty of Southwest Florida’s lingering red tide problem as hundreds of them have washed up dead or dying on beaches in Collier and Lee counties since Saturday.

Billy Norris, a Naples resident and owner of Pale Horse Fishing Charters, was at Bonita Beach Monday where he saw masses of dead crabs.

“They were all crawling out because I guess they couldn’t breathe in the water,” Norris said. “Then they were dying on the beach. The sheer amount of them was pretty amazing.”

On Wednesday, Bonita Beach’s water was a rusty, red color and its shore was still littered with crab claws and dead or dying crabs of different sizes and species including blue crabs, Atlantic horseshoe crabs, calico crabs and Cuban mole crabs.

Bonita Beach in Lee County is not the only area where dead crabs are washing ashore. Connie Deane, a Collier County spokeswoman, said dead crabs have had to be cleaned up at all Collier beaches since last Saturday.

Courtesy of eu.news-press.com

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Thousands of dead #crabs washing up along coast of #Oregon, #USA

(Oregon Coast) – More strange finds on the Oregon coast this week: yet another rare squid and massive amount of crabs were found on the beaches lately. (Photos courtesy Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium).

More strange finds on the Oregon coast this week: yet another rare squid and massive amount of crabs were found on the beaches lately. (Photos courtesy Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium).

A whole lotta dead Dungeness crabs are washing up as of late, and it has some a little concerned.

Some of it is just the usual crab molting that happens right about now: beaches this time of year can be flooded with the empty shells of crabs that have shed their outer layer as part of their normal growth process.

But many of the crabs are simply dead carcasses, with their meaty bodies still inside the shells. It’s an unusually large amount of them: just about every beach on the Oregon coast is strewn with hundreds of them, sometimes thousands.

The culprit is a simple upwelling. This is when cold water gets churned up suddenly by a certain set of weather conditions and it brings up gobs of things from the bottom. This is definitely responsible for all the crabs washing up.

However, are there more dead crabs than usual? Is something causing them to die off in bigger numbers, or is it just that the ocean bottom got scoured a bit more than usual?

Cannon Beach’s Haystack Rock Awareness Program thinks it is an unusual amount of dead bodies mixed in with the molts, according to their Facebook posts. They believe it’s quite possible there’s a bigger die-off than usual.

There is evidence this is just a normal upwelling event and not a die-off, however. Seaside Aquarium education specialist Tiffany Boothe said she has found lots of other things as well.

“Along with the dead crabs we are also seeing a lot of tube worm casings, mole crab molts, and hatched out snail eggs,” she said.

Courtesy of beachconnection.net

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Thousands of red crabs wash up on Catalina Island, California, USA

Photo By Register/SCNG

A trip to Catalina Island this week became a lesson in marine biology, with tiny red crabs washing ashore in the thousands and dozens of kids working tirelessly to try to save them by returning them to the sea.

 

Micah Stovall, of Huntington Beach, took a quick vacation to Catalina with family in town from Tennessee when they noticed the small creatures along the shore and in the shallow waters at the main beach in Avalon.

 

Stovall knew right away what they were: small crabs that look like tiny lobsters or crawfish. He had ventured with his family two years ago to Balboa Island in Newport Beach when hundreds of thousands of them blanketed the shore.

 

The Pleuroncodes planipes, also known as pelagic red crabs or tuna crabs, are about one to three inches long. They are usually found off Baja, but warm water in the past few years has pushed them up to Southern California in large numbers, especially along the Orange County coastline. Before then, the crabs hadn’t been seen in the area for decades.

 

While El Nino was credited for the invasion the past few years, the water has returned to normal, colder temperatures this year. But a south swell in recent days has helped push warm water to the coastline, in many areas boosting water temperatures near 70 degrees.

 

Their sudden appearance can be a headache for maintenance workers as they try to scoop up the mostly dead creatures that leave a strong stench when they wash ashore and bake in the sun for too long.

 

In June 2015, they showed up in the hundreds of thousands from Huntington Beach to Dana Point. Last year, they appeared at Dog Beach in Huntington and parts of Newport Beach in May.

 

Mike Pisani, municipal operations director for the city of Newport Beach, said he has not seen any washing ashore on local beaches — yet.

 

“It probably means they are coming though,” he said upon hearing they were washing up on Catalina.

 

In some cases, for beaches that are in protected zones that have strict restrictions on removing creatures, there’s no choice but to wait until the tides wash them away or sea gulls feast on them, leaving less-than-ideal conditions for beachgoers looking for pristine sand to lay their towel out on.

 

Todd Mansur, captain for Dana Wharf Sportsfishing and Whale Watching, said he’s seen them offshore in deeper waters near Catalina.

 

“They are all over the place,” he said.

 

But he’s unsure if they’ll reach Southern California beaches.

 

“South swells, murky waters, different currents will probably keep that stuff off the beaches for awhile,” he said. “It’s unlikely coming any closer because of the conditions we have.”

 

Julianne Steers, director of husbandry at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, said a research group saw the red crabs in big numbers two miles from Dana Point last week.

 

“We had a massive collection of them, more than 100 pounds,” she said. “Our net was full.”

 

While most were returned to the ocean, a few were kept for research.

 

“We release them, but we usually take a few so we have them to study and learn from for those who can’t get out in the field to see them,” she said. “When we have that quantity of them, we let them live out there and let them continue to be part of the food chain.”

 

Whether they’ll come washing ashore on local beaches is unknown.

 

“It just depends on where the swell will be heading,” she said. “It’s a combination of the two — the swell and the currents.”

 

Spencer Gilbert, a Los Angeles County lifeguard, said they aren’t carpeting the beaches on Catalina like they did last year, but they are “definitely making an appearance.”

 

He said thousands of them started showing up Sunday, and people have been collecting them in buckets and dumping them back in the ocean.

 

Stovall’s 8-year-old triplets, other family members and about 100 other children helped in the effort.

 

“My girls were fearless, they were stoked on it,” he said.

 

He didn’t dampen the kids’ efforts with the harsh reality of Mother Nature.

 

“The lifeguard said, ‘You can try as hard as you want. They are open-ocean animals. They are done,’” Stovall said.

Courtesy of ocregister.com

 

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Hundreds of crabs and fish have died in Queensland, Australia

Eighty fish have washed up dead in south-west Queensland and hundreds of crabs have also perished on a south-east island amid extreme conditions.

 

It is estimated 77 Murray cod and three golden perch have died since Saturday morning in the Ward River, near Charleville.

 

The local Fishing and Restocking Club president believed the deaths were caused by a “black water event” after years of drought followed by heavy rainfall.

 

“Dirty water has washed down and took all the oxygen out of our river and it’s killed a lot of cod,” he said.

 

“All the stagnant water sits in the water holes with all the leaf matter, when you get a bit of a run [in the river] it just takes the oxygen out of the water.

 

Mr Ward said the fish deaths occurred at a popular fishing spot, which was devastating for tourists, however those caught in the river can still be eaten.

 

While the fish deaths seem to have settled down, Mr Ward said more were possible.

 

“Hopefully everything will go alright and there will be plenty of fish for the tourists and everyone to catch,” Mr Ward said.

 

“We’ve got a bit of a run now so hopefully it’s washed all that black water away, but you never know.”

 

The fishing club has been restocking the local rivers since 1992.

 

Since then, they have added 51,300 cod and 604,000 yellow belly in the Warrego and Ward rivers.

 

The Charleville Fishing and Restocking Club has notified The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection and is waiting for test results from the Murweh Regional Council.

 

A mass die off of crabs and yabbies also occurred in the past few days in Mermaid Lagoon on Bribie Island, off Brisbane.

 

It comes after a five-day heatwave saw temperatures reach more than 35C in and near Brisbane.

 

The crustaceans lined the lagoon, appearing to have all died around the same time.

 

“The Department of Environment and Heritage said natural conditions are the likely cause, in particular the recent hot weather and low water levels,” a department spokesperson said.

 

“Marine and freshwater fauna can be adversely impacted when weather conditions result in low dissolved oxygen in the water.”

Courtesy of abc.net.au

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Hundreds of dead lobsters, starfish and crabs found washed ashore in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

These are just some of the estimated 100 lobsters Josephine Chubbs said washed up on the beach near her Norris Point home in December – ©Submitted photo

Josephine Chubbs was shocked on Dec. 17 to see a large number of sea creatures wash up on the beach near her Norris Point home.

 

Chubbs lives in an area known as Deckers Cove. “Our backyard is right on the ocean,” she said by phone Monday.

 

Dec. 17 had been a day of nasty weather that brought high seas and pretty cold temperatures. While snowblowing her husband picked up a lobster right in their driveway and brought it in the house. Not long after he went inside and told Chubbs to dress warm because they had to go down on the beach.

 

There they found hundreds of sea creatures washed up by the sea.

 

“I’ve seen caplin rolling, but never seen lobsters and connors and starfish and crab,” she said. “It was everything washing ashore.”

 

She estimates there were 100 lobsters alone. “It was babies, from two inches to measured (harvestable) lobsters.”

 

Chubbs, who is the custodian at the Bonne Bay Marine Station, was ready to do what she could to get the creatures to the tanks at the marine station, but everything was dead. “There was nothing that I could help save.”

 

She later called Bob Hooper, the retired MUN professor is the founding director of the station and still volunteers there, to get his thoughts on the discovery.

 

From the pictures she sent, Hooper was struck that there was a mixture of species, so he feels the creatures were not killed by a disease.

 

“Everything looked very healthy, apart from being dead,” he said.

 

He also noted that all the creatures washed up reach their northern limit in Newfoundland and are not things that are found in Labrador.

 

“The significance of that is it suggests that cold is the problem.”

 

He’s seen mortalities dozen of times between the fall and this time of year related to water temperatures getting close to and below freezing.

 

“Even it goes down a fraction of a degree it might make the difference between a connor being alive and a connor being dead.”

 

 He said the loss is probably worse than it looked, as it’s possible more creatures than what washed up were affected, but hopes it’s localized to the shoal waters in front of Chubb’s house.

 

He’ll be looking to confirm his hypothesis on what happened when he visits the marine station in the next while to download data gathered by a temperature recorder he has there.

Courtesy of thetelegram.com

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