If you were to visit certain parts of Texas right now, the coastline would be littered with thousands of dead, floating fish.
Image Credit: The Fish Whisperer/YouTube
While the cause for this phenomenon is debated back and forth, Texas Parks & Wildlife claims that massive fish kills like this one are most common when there isn’t enough oxygen in the water. This makes it harder for the fish to ‘breathe’ underwater, and hence they just black out and eventually asphyxiate.
Low dissolved oxygen can be caused by human activities, but Texas Parks & Wildlife says that it’s more commonly a natural occurrence.
Citing Texas Parks & Wildlife, other known possible causes for large fish kills are:
Popular YouTuber The Fish Whisperer documented the latest fish kill event on camera, showing the gruesome scene in full HD on his own channel:
While most of the fish appear to be lifeless, some can be seen moving around in their last dying breath trying to gather what oxygen they can.
This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. It also happens in other parts of the world, including New York. Notably, the case in New York was related to an oxygen shortage in the water as well after a large group sum of menhaden were trapped inside of a channel.
Although the New York event was caused by human impact, the situation in Texas is an example of a natural fish kill. With that in mind, it's unlikely to have been caused by human actions.
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It looks as though there’s no official word on what caused this round of dead fish, but experts out to be out there testing the water as of this writing to find out exactly what’s going on.
Source: BBC, Texas Parks & Wildlife
