The intensely cold winter and a deeper than usual ice cover on Chautauqua Lake is apparently what's triggered a major fish kill along the lake's shoreline. Hundreds of silver bass and gizzard shad, and other mainly "surface fish" had been pushed onto land by high winds last weekend. Chautauqua County's Director of Environmental Health Services, Mark Stow, took a look at an area in Bemus Point Monday, where 1,000 fish washed up...
Mark Stow: dead fish near Interstate 86
Stow says officials with the State DEC say such fish die-off is quite natural because the thick ice, cold temperatures, and decaying vegetation likely robbed oxygen from the water. He says the situation is not a health hazard, but adds there is no agency mechanism in place to dispose of the fish. With that, he says you have to let nature take its course...
Mark Stow: let nature take its course
Stow says with the numbers that have washed up, there's no concern over a fish shortage in the lake. He adds Lake Erie has had a similar die-off. In an article today in the Jamestown Post-Journal, the DEC is telling lakeside residents looking to get rid of the dead carcasses to dispose of the fish at the county landfill.
The intensely cold winter and a deeper than usual ice cover on Chautauqua Lake is apparently what's triggered a major fish kill along the lake's shoreline. Hundreds of silver bass and gizzard shad, and other mainly "surface fish" had been pushed onto land by high winds last weekend. Chautauqua County's Director of Environmental Health Services, Mark Stow, took a look at an area in Bemus Point Monday, where 1,000 fish washed up...
