Millions Of Sardines Die In Redondo Beach *5 VIDEOS*

(CNS) Posted Tuesday March 8, 2011

Millions of sardines died in Redondo Beach’s King Harbor,apparently due to a lack of oxygen in the water, and city crews were working to remove them today, authorities said.

The surface of the water was covered in places by tons of the fish, in places a foot thick, Redondo Beach police Sgt. Phil Keenan said.

 Some observers estimated more than a billion fish went belly-up overnight and this morning.

The cleanup is being handled by the county Department of Public Works, Keenan said. The job could take several days, as dead fish on the bottom decompose and float to the surface.

Sardines move in gigantic schools, sometimes called “bait balls,’ and the yesterday’s high winds could have driven them into the harbor, which is in a pocket

at the southern end of Santa Monica Bay. Yesterday’s strong winds were out of the northwest.

 California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan said officials

believe the fish “got lost” in rough seas and made a wrong turn at the breakwater,

 ending up in the harbor, where they used up all the available oxygen.

Initial testing revealed no sign of natural toxins, such as domoic acid, which

sometimes kills marine life. Most of the dead fish were in basins 1 and 2.

Hughan said there was no health hazard, and the city was doing a good job in handling the cleanup.

Crews, who were using garbage cans to scoop up the dead fish, were scrambling to dispose of them before the stink grew worse.

Keenan said authorities believe many of the sardines died from “oxygen deprivation.’

“And millions of them came into the harbor. And there are still millions of them alive behind us here that are being fed on by the seagulls and the sea lions.

But these particular sardines got into this basin here, which is a smaller area — and a confined area — and we believe they died of oxygen deprivation.

 ”We know this because the water content is good; there’s other fish still living; it’s

just the sardines that died off,’ Keenan said.

“Sardines consume a lot of oxygen, and there was not a lot of oxygen in the confined area where they were; and so they died of oxygen deprivation,’

Keenan said. “It’s like putting too many fish in a small aquarium.’

VIDEO : bbc.co.uk

VIDEO : reuters.com

VIDEO: examiner.com

VIDEO: whnt.com

VIDEO: abcnews.go.com

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SOURCE to read…abc.net.au

Australia: Corexit EC9500 and Corexit EC9527A Used, Activists Claim 8 Deaths, Fish Kills Linked to the Dispersant’s !
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