Dead Fish

Posted on October 5, 2010 inStories and 'Fish' Stories

Another race this past summer. From about 1/2 mile into the race, throughout the whole course, we kept seeing dead croakers floating by us. Not just a few fish, but hundreds of them. Here’s the email trail I have from the incident. I’ve removed the names, since I didn’t ask the parties involved if I could reprint them:

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[Fellow Racer]
Does anyone know why there were so many dead fish on the York River last night?  They all seemed to be the same species.
Is there any ‘normal” reason for it?  …like the 103 degree air temperature?  The water temp was reported to be 82.2 degrees yesterday.  Could that be the reason?
…just curious!
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[Fellow Racer]

They were mostly croaker, 6 “ FL or better and they were more dense out past G19 (effect of the current?) than further in the river.
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[Virginia Dept of Environmental Quality]
Most of the York splits between PRO and TRO between Gloucester (PRO)  and James City/York Co (TRO).  I have not heard of any fresh croaker kills, but a few years ago there were major species-specific croaker kills.  I think Roger or Wick can tell you more on those.
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[Virginia Institute of Marine Science Professor]
We are collecting water samples to see if there is an indication of large numbers of a HAB organism in the area.  This could, however, be a low DO event or a “dump”.   Anyone have some other ideas?  Also, if someone is actually out in a boat today in the area can you please collect a water sample, if possible.  Thanks.

We will let you know if we see anything interesting in the water sample collected from the boat basin.

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We ran through a patch of dead fish like those described yesterday morning just off the mouth of Mobjack Bay. Might have been that same patch seen later near green 19, ~4 miles away. Looked to me like a haul seine cull.

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Thank you, two.

I would tend to agree with [name withheld] but the numbers were incredible – would you expect that from a net dump?

They appeared to be floating individually up the York and rafting out past Tue Marsh. They were in good shape (no visual lesions or discolorations), as could be seen from the deck of a sailboat, except for a bitten piece missing on the occasional carcass. Also, some had eyes that appeared sunken and some had eyes that were bulging and all had bloated abdomens.
Does this extra observation help?

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On July 1 the lower York River (below the Coleman Bridge) had DO measurements of 1.5, 2.1, and 2.3 mg/L at three different locations.

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[name withheld] reference to HAB’s is Harmful Algal Blooms.  (But the fish kill was size and species specific, not typical of a toxic bloom.)  The DO is Dissolved Oxygen and the values listed below are very low indeed. But those are probably surface values.  Croakers are benthic (bottom) carnivores and the DO values are going to be higher in cooler waters near the bottom…unless there is an anoxic (essentially no dissolved oxygen)  layer that appears in mid summer in the middle of the Bay.  But fish are capable of avoiding such a hostile environment.

It would appear that a mega-school of age specific croaker were thrown out of a net haul.  I’ll send this information to [name withheld] of the VMRC for his “FYI”.
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Thanks to all who responded to this email. I gleaned a lot from the discussions and I appreciate your time.

On Saturday morning there was a dump by a gill net fisherman as witnessed by Hamish Small just above Tue Marsh. Evidently, even though there is a market for croaker, this practice of dumping and sometimes in very large numbers is not unheard of (thanks Larry H.). So, even though the DO levels have been low in areas of the river and temps high (numerous observations) it appears that for whatever reason, a massive number of croaker became by-catch to a local fisherman.
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And lastly. Not sure if this was the same fish kill, although the high numbers suggest it would be. The thing is, though, that those dead fish were carried about 20 nm if it is the same one.

Omega Protein, a Texas-based fishing industry that operates a plant in Reedville, has taken full responsibility of cleaning up thousands of dead menhaden fish that washed ashore at Fort Monroe last evening and into the early morning hours.  During a transfer of menhaden from their net to a processing ship on Monday, the net was damaged causing a tear, thus releasing approximately 50,000 to 75,000 fish into the Chesapeake Bay, according to Ben Landry, a spokesperson for Omega Protein.  The fish died and sank to the bottom, then later floated to the water’s surface.  Tides carried an estimated 20,000 fish that came ashore along a 5-mile stretch of shoreline, including Monroe’s beaches and Hampton’s Buckroe Beach.

Omega Protein subcontracted IMS/HEPACO, an environmental and emergency response company, to clean up Monroe’s beachfront today.  Monroe’s Directorate of Public Works initially responded last night at approximately 6:30 and worked until 11 recovering thousands of dead fish on Monroe’s shoreline.  DPW turned over efforts to IMS/HEPACO at 10:30 this morning.

IMS/HEPACO started on the Southside Beach near the Bay Breeze Community Center on Fenwick Road and will work north to Dog Beach.  IMS/HEPACO also deployed spotter planes and skimmer boats to search the waters.  IMS/HEPACO has previously performed spill response work for Monroe’s Directorate of Public Works.   As a precaution, Fort Monroe closed its historic moat’s sluice gates from Mill Creek.