Thousands of dead herrings wash on Vancouver Island Jan. 21

Dead herring wash ashore on Vancouver Island

NANAIMO -- Large numbers of dead herring that washed ashore this week on a Vancouver Island beach have both fishery officials and local fishermen looking for answers.

Will Meeks, who works close to Cedar's North Beach where the fish washed ashore, said he knew something was amiss when he saw unusually large numbers of birds congregating on the beach Thursday morning.

He said he was surprised to find "thousands" of dead herring washed ashore, a scene he can't recall ever seeing before on local beaches.

Meeks said the dead herring appear to localized to North Beach because he and friends checked nearby beaches and found nothing similar.

Lisa Mijacika, a spokeswoman with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said DFO officers are being sent to North Beach to determine what killed so many herring.

"It appears to be a very rare occurrence and we hope to know more once our officers have a look."

Yeah very rare... except this kind of thing is happening worldwide.

And the possible reason :

Paul Kershaw, a commercial herring fisherman, speculated that the fish could have ended up in an area of the ocean close to the beach that was low in oxygen, which could have caused the deaths.

We'll see.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Oh my word. At some point this has to end. The Gov't is running out of excuses. This month they tell us they are responsible for the bird deaths but what will the excuse be next month?

Thanks for posting this. I live on Vancouver Island, just about an hour 1/2 away from Nanaimo. I figured it was just a matter of time before these animal deaths reached here.
Sigh.

They probably got confused and ran into the mouth of a shark which became overfed and in turn regurgitated them out after they where partially digested.

Originally posted by Cib2010
They probably got confused and ran into the mouth of a shark which became overfed and in turn regurgitated them out after they where partially digested.

That's a nice theory! You should work for CNN!

This theory is better than the fireworks in entertainment value!