Millions of dead fish wash up in Australia amid heat wave

www.theglobeandmail.com...

So, this is rather weird. I can't embed the pic but it's pretty awful. Looks like a rock road. I don't understand why one guy says he "nearly" had to put a mask on, though. Either you had to or didn't, am I right? This stuff is all weird these days so what the frak do I know about anything.

Millions of fish have washed up dead in southeastern Australia in what authorities and scientists say is caused by floods and hot weather. The Department of Primary Industries in New South Wales state said the fish deaths coincided with a heat wave that put stress on a system that has experienced extreme conditions from wide-scale flooding.

The deaths were likely caused by low oxygen levels as floods recede, a situation made worse by fish needing more oxygen because of the warmer weather, the department said. Residents of the Outback town of Menindee complained of a terrible smell from the dead fish.

“We’ve just sort of started to clean up, and then this has happened, and that’s sort of you’re walking around in a dried-up mess and then you’re smelling this putrid smell. It’s a terrible smell and horrible to see all those dead fish,” said Jan Dening, a local.

Nature photographer Geoff Looney found huge clusters of dead fish near the main weir in Menindee on Thursday evening. “The stink was terrible. I nearly had to put a mask on,” Looney said. “I was worried about my own health. That water right in the top comes down to our pumping station for the town. People north of Menindee say there’s cod and perch floating down the river everywhere.”

Mass kills have been reported on the Darling-Baaka River in recent weeks. Tens of thousands of fish were found at the same spot in late February, while there have been several reports of dead fish downstream toward Pooncarie, near the borders of South Australia and Victoria states.

Enormous fish kills occurred on the river at Menindee during severe drought conditions in late 2018 and early 2019, with locals estimating millions of deaths.

Hopefully, they can find a way to gather the fish to a remote area to be composted somehow. Great for farming. I can't even imagine how bad that must smell.
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

originally posted by: KMeRMoRe
Hopefully, they can find a way to gather the fish to a remote area to be composted somehow. Great for farming. I can't even imagine how bad that must smell.
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

That's a great idea.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


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Sucks to be a fish over there. It doesn't look like the water is moving much which would aerate the water. I wonder if the flooding caused chemicals used in agriculture and other sources to be brought into the river which causes oxygen to not be properly held in the water. Rotting fish will also upset the ecosystem leading to mass die offs as numbers increase.

Has anyone done an autopsy on these fish to prove they drowned and weren't poisoned?
Rainbows
Jane

a reply to: rickymouse

I would be wondering if any chemical reactions from underwater volcanic activities are leaching into the waters.

a reply to: angelchemuel

Yeah, that's what should be looked into. people seem to forget that it was only a year ago that Tonga went missing from an explosion, and there still might be geological things happening from that.

originally posted by: Guyfriday
a reply to: rickymouse

I would be wondering if any chemical reactions from underwater volcanic activities are leaching into the waters.

Natural chemicals from long ago volcanos can be stored in the earth. Floods can bring those chemicals out of the earth.

If there is mining going on around there upstream, the floods could release the chemicals that were taken out of the ore processing and leach them into the river. We have mines here and sometimes the levels of mining byproduct chemicals get into the rivers and lakes which cause fish to die.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

I am aussie yes we are having a heatwave but we call it that because we had a very mild summer the so called heatwave is just normal weather in other years and i don't remember millions of dead fish washing up either... So what is it then?

originally posted by: angelchemuel
Has anyone done an autopsy on these fish to prove they drowned and weren't poisoned?
Rainbows
Jane

The rivers in this region don’t flow all year, as the river beds dry up fish are trapped in pools and the fish depleted the air. Also we have had rivers water levels rise 30’ or more washing over the river banks and into catchment areas beside the rivers taking fish over the embankment. A lot of inland Australia is either in flood or in drought.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Sucks to be a fish over there. It doesn't look like the water is moving much which would aerate the water. I wonder if the flooding caused chemicals used in agriculture and other sources to be brought into the river which causes oxygen to not be properly held in the water. Rotting fish will also upset the ecosystem leading to mass die offs as numbers increase.

The flooding would wash bad chems out. This is about oxygen and that is usually because of a biological reason like algae. I suspect in this case that most likely to me the increased water encouraged the fish population to explode rapidly then as it got hot the water evaporates over a huge fish population.

a reply to: angelchemuel
Agreed. In their first paragraph the scientists say it was caused by floods and hot weather. Then in the next paragraph they say "likely" caused. Likely is not definite. These fish do not want putting near any human related environment till the cause of death has been confirmed.