Millions of dead fish at King Harbor in Redondo Beach

Source: LA Times

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef014e5fb9befe970c-640wi

Authorities in Redondo Beach are investigating what killed millions of fish over the last day at King Harbor Marina.

Fish, including anchovies, sardines and mackerel were floating lifeless in Basins 1 and 2 of the north side of King Harbor Marina.

"There’s basically fish everywhere you go in the harbor," said the harbor's assistant manager, Jason McMullin, who added that there were reports that a red tide may have driven the fish into the harbor in massive numbers where they died because of limited oxygen.

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/redondo-beach-authorities-report-large-fish-kill-at-king-harbor.html

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More pictures at link

Or was it that Chinese submarine-launched ballistic missile?

harbor's manager said is the explanation. For whatever reason, too many fish enter an area, and there's not enough dissolved oxygen for them, so they die off. What a mess.

the name science uses. All red tides are algal blooms, but not all algal blooms are red tides. The ones that don't cause any harm are usually not called anything my laymen, since they don't know that they happened. Algal blooms can occur in both fresh and salt water. Here in Minnesota, where I moved from my coastal home in California, a lot of shallow freshwater lakes experience a heavy algal bloom every summer. Lots of fish die in those, and they're mostly caused by runoff from lakeshore homes and their big lawns that use lots of fertilizer. It's the scourge of anglers like myself.

lose out on fishing and we all lose out on eating fish.

Hate that, I love fish - love it and it's healthy.

What do you think of farm raised fish?

again later. Yes, the algal blooms on most Minnesota lakes are caused by the rich people who can afford to live on the lakeshore and maintain huge lawns. They don't like me using "their" lake, either. There are laws about polluting lakes, but they're not enforced because the people who live on the lakes have lots of money to donate to legislators.

Fortunately, there are many lakes that are not polluted in that way, so I choose to fish on those.

....like high levels of Mercury, other heavy metals, PCBs, etc.

The last time I fished in Minnesota (2005), the Minnesota DNR recommended eating no more than 1 fish per month for healthy adults, and ZERO for children and pregnant women.

Really too bad for the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

fish were caught. Short-lived species, like sunfish and crappie are not a problem in most waters. Predator fish, which live longer, do have mercury, depending on where they live. The MN DNR publishes information for most game species lake by lake and river by river. Some freshwater fish are fine to eat, depending on species and where they were caught.

There is mercury in freshwater fish everywhere. It pays to do some research before eating them.

and another new huge one covering a good portion of the gulf adding to the hundreds of others out there. It is a wonder any fish has a shot at a full life any more.

demonstrate that? I haven't seen any evidence of it, but I'm not looking all that hard. If you have some evidence you can present, I'd certainly go look at it.

article links

in 2004
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4624359/ns/us_news-environment/

in 2008
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26202398/ns/world_news-world_environment/


Dead zones (red algae) don't go away, once it is dead it is dead. So far no one is successfully working on turning a dead/red zone around.

The Baltic sea has seven of the biggest dead zones
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100305-baltic-sea-algae-dead-zones-water/
The new one in the Gulf of Mexico is giving the Baltic a run for its money
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/

coastlines would be dead, at least those in moderate climates. Red tides, or algal blooms pop up and go away. That's their nature. I think you're confusing them with oxygen deficient areas in general, which they are not. They are a passing phenomenon, algal blooms. They can case serious disruption while they are present, but soon disappear. Another one may pop up at another time and another place.

I'm afraid you are conflating two different phenomena.

...where the red tide came from?

Changing water temperatures? Pollutants causing the suspect algal bloom?

for generations. I don't know about other areas, but I lived on the coast in California for 35 years. Red tides happened on an annual basis. Sometimes, they caused fish kills, usually in harbor areas. It happens.

Red tides are a natural phenomenon, well-known to people who inhabit coastal areas, and well-understood by science. You can learn lots more about these algal blooms, commonly called red tides at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide

They can be caused by natural conditions, as are most of them off the Southern Califoria coast, or from contamination by nutrient-rich land-based sources, such as agricultural runoff or sewage. There's nothing particular uncommon about them.

What caused this particular fish kill will require study, certainly, but such fish kills in harbors are not uncommon.

Of course, Red Tides can be exacerbated by unnatural conditions, as well...

As you know.

All part of the well-understood science of the effects of pollutants, nutrient runoff, etc...

replying. They also occur without any artificial stimuli. In any case, there was a fish kill. I'm sure it's being investigated and we'll find out what caused it.

n/t

in your local newspaper. The Fish and Game Department will probably get the results and publish them, but you'll have to look for them, and it will take months before they're available, I'm sure. Or, it could be another department. I'm not in California any more, so I don't really follow issues there so much. I'm a permanent resident of Minnesota now, and do my environmental stuff here. That I'm very interested in, and follow very closely. Our DNR is very good about releasing study results, and holding hearings. I have testified at several of them, along with hearings in the state legislature. Environmental issues are important to me. Water quality issues in particular.

to the point of killing it completely off. I'm just now seeing a pic of this on CNN. STUNNED!!

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3UtGJLbyLI">VIDEO

This Marina, like many others, is a tiny little corner of the harbor, hemmed in on three sides and jammed from corner to corner with pleasure boats in slips. Such places are dead zones for fish in the best of times. If these fish swam into that enclosed little body of water, for whatever reason, in the kind of numbers the photos indicate, they'd have died there no matter what. Marinas are not friendly to aquatic life in any way.

I hadn't looked at the actual location until just now. You can see the harbor at http://www.kingharbor.com/boat_slips/

That small area of the harbor is essential devoid of life. The mass of boats blocks the sunlight, and seeps and leaks of petroleum-based products are a commonplace. Fish do not live there. Fish cannot live there.

If you want to see man's impact on a small body of water, the photos at that link will show you some of the worst sort of it. Here's a map of the place the fish kill happened:

Corporatists can be filth, but some catastrophes are just natural phenomena.


Hence, natural selection.

:thumbsup:

:sarcasm:

Natural MY ASS! :grr: :mad: :argh:

Can you say BP KILLS YET?

:kick:

See #18 for the most probable suggested explanation so far.

> Natural MY ASS!
> Can you say BP KILLS YET?

Can you say "Americans don't know science or geography yet"? :eyes:

You're a fool if you believe otherwise.

We don't need anymore help from "mankind" or any other disgusting polluter out there, especially BP who just got another big drilling permit approved in the gulf. Another spill is right around the corner and that is the kind of "change" you can believe in.

How sad that people refuse to see the reality of what "mankind" is doing to the HUMAN race as it kills off the rest of the world in its path of destruction. How many more fish, seals, dolphins, etc. etc. do we have to see before we say ENOUGH?

I see it and I don't like it. Nope. :argh:

ENOUGH!

All I was trying to point out to "CountAllVotes" was that he/she
is being completely dumb to use this event as a springboard for
a rant at BP.

The only tenuous connection between BP and this particular sad event
is the fuel in (and spilled around) each of the polluting vessels in
that marina development - a development that has trashed any semblance
of a natural environment for the creatures that are apparently causing
him/her to shed so many angry crocodile tears.

Rant at the developers.
Rant at the weekend motorboaters.
Rant at every other user of fossil fuels.
Rant at the wasters who just throw their rubbish over the side.
Rant at the agricultural wastelands for pouring fertilizers into the ocean.

All of the above are valid. Ranting at BP in this case is not.

:shrug:

and that is not that far from the Gulf of Mexico which is a dead zone as far as I am concerned.

BP fucked up the whole ocean from Florida to the Gulf of Mexico and then some. One hundred million gallons (or was it BARRELS) of oil just does not disappear overnight, it stays there and does not leave.

The bottom of the sea floor is filled with oil and dead sea life.

And now we see Redondo Beach. :eyes: ...

The Gulf connects to the Atlantic Ocean. California is bordered by the Pacific Ocean. There's no flow between the two oceans anywhere near California. Perhaps you have not looked at a map recently:



See the Gulf of Mexico, there, right South of Texas and West of Florida? Not near California.

and yeah it sucks alright.

Sorry I bothered.

You are angrily posting from total ignorance.

The fact that BP "fucked up" a huge piece of the Gulf of Mexico,
adding a brand new dead zone to those that have been there for
years (and those annually recurring ones that have been happily
growing each time they reappear) is not in dispute but it also
has ZERO bearing on the events mentioned in this thread.

:eyes:

And then made it's way thousands of miles up the west coast of South America before settling off California?

Or did it somehow ooze it's way across the Mexican desert like the Blob?

Oh wait, we are. We're primates!

There were people fishing up and down the pier, but signs everywhere telling people not to eat what they caught. What's the point then, I guess?