NEW HAVEN, Conn. — August 7, 2012 — Dozens of dead fish littered the Quinnipiac River banks near Front Street, coating the area in a thick, fishy scent, providing a feast for sea gulls and leaving some fishermen scratching their heads.
The fish, reportedly menhaden, could be seen among the rocks and seaweed of the river’s shore, with sunlight glinting off their silver scales. Birds were flocking to the spot, pecking at the fish and waiting for others to die.
Massachusetts resident Ismael Perez was stepping around the fish Tuesday while he cast a line with two other fishermen. When asked whether he was concerned about the high fish kill rate, he said, “Yeah, because I don’t know why they’re dying,” but they are usually used as bait, not as food, so he wasn’t worried about people catching them and eating them.
“I’ve never seen this many dead fish,” said Perez, who fishes about three days a week in Massachusetts.
Mark Alexander, supervising fisheries biologist for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Fisheries Division, said this is the second large fish kill that has been reported in New Haven in a week.
“We’ve had some pretty big schools of menhaden in the New Haven Harbor,” he said. “They’ll sometimes ascend up the river, pushed by predatory bluefish, and the water gets very warm so the fish die naturally.
When asked if the Southington fire at Rex Forge that erupted last Tuesday and resulted in spillage of more than 1,000 gallons of light oil waste into the Quinnipiac River could be causing the fish kills, Alexander said it was too far up the river to hurt New Haven and the spill was contained in the northern part of the state.
Read the full story at the New Haven Register.