AssetID: 52806308
Headline: Act Of Cod! Thousands Of Dead Fish Wash Ashore On Texas' Gulf Coast
Caption: Tens of thousands of dead fish washed ashore along the Gulf coast of Texas from Friday (09June2023) after they became starved of oxygen in warm water, according to officials. These images and video show the astonishing carpet of dead fish near the mouth of the Brazos River in Freeport, Texas. According to local wildlife enthusiast Darrell Schoppe, the fish graveyard extended for miles along local beaches. “Was hoping to take advantage of the flat surf and catch a quick limit of speckled trout, but things didn’t go as planned unfortunately!!” he wrote on social media. “The sunrise was gorgeous!! The aftermath of oxygen-depleted water not so much!! At first I was assuming this was from red tide, but got a call that it’s likely not!! Thousands of dead fish from the mouth of the Brazos River down the entire shoreline for miles headed east on Bryan and Quintana Beach!!” Park officials for Brazoria County have been conducting a cleanup effort but expect thousands more fish were expected to wash ashore. The cause is apparently a “perfect storm” of bad conditions for fish. Warm water holds much less oxygen than cold water, while calm seas and cloudy skies also stymied the ways oxygen usually finds its way into ocean water. Waves add oxygen to the water, and cloudy skies reduce microscopic organisms’ production of oxygen through photosynthesis. When shoals of fish are trapped in shallow, warm water, they can start to act erratically as their gills are starved of oxygen, which worsens conditions further. America’s National Weather Service recorded a high of 92 degrees Fahrenheit in Brazoria County on Friday, the day the dead fish arrived - sparking fears that climate change means more similarly warm days will mean more events like this one.
Keywords: fish,global warming,climate change,death,texas,gulf coast,animals,environment
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