Thousands of dead fish washed up on a Texas coast recently, baffling locals as to what may have caused such an event.
Officials, however, were quick to point to a possible cause.
Last Friday, Texas resident Darrell Schoppe posted a video to Facebook showing what looked like thousands of dead fish on the shore of Quintana Beach near Freeport, Texas just south of Houston.
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In the post, Schoppe said that he was at the beach that morning to catch some speckled trout, but his plans changed when he saw the dramatic scene on the beach.
He went on to say that the dead fish came from the mouth of the Brazos River and covered the shoreline “for miles”.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department investigated the troubling scene and concluded that a “low dissolved oxygen event” had occurred, according to a report from local news affiliate KSAT.
So, the fish died from a lack of oxygen in the water due to a combination of rising June temperatures and lower-than-normal wave action.
“Fish kills like this are common in the summer when temperatures increase … Daily variations in dissolved oxygen concentration are attributed to photosynthesis and aerobic respiration,” officials from TPWD said.
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