One million dead fish discovered floating in one of Australia’s biggest rivers as officials rush to investigate
- Up to a million native fish killed in the Darling River
- Devastated locals have demanded answers.
- The 2019 drought caused the death of fish in the same area
- Government officials are currently investigating
Millions of native fish have washed up dead near Menindee in inland New South Wales, in a series of mass deaths caused by flooding and hot weather.
The state Department of Primary Industries said fish such as bony herring, Murray cod and perch had died in the lower reaches of the Darling-Baaka River in the far west, along with carp.
“This event continues as a heatwave in western NSW continues to put further pressure on a system that has experienced extreme conditions due to large-scale flooding,” the department said on Friday.
The deaths were likely caused by low oxygen levels as the floods receded, a situation made worse by fish needing more oxygen due to the warmer weather.
The bony herring was a boom-and-bust species, the department said, thriving in flooding but more susceptible to stress when water flows return to normal.
‘NSW DPI understands that fish kill events are distressing to the local community, particularly in the lower Darling-Baaka.’
Local nature photographer Geoff Looney found huge clumps of dead fish near the main Menindee Dam on Thursday night.
The stench was terrible. I almost had to put on a mask,” Looney told AAP.
‘I was worried about my own health. That water right at the top goes down to our pump station for the city.
People north of Menindee say there are cod and perch floating down the river everywhere.
Mass murders have been reported in the Darling-Baaka river in recent weeks.
Tens of thousands of fish were found at the same location in late February, while there have been several reports of dead fish downriver towards Pooncarie, near the South Australian and Victorian borders, since February 20.
Huge fish kills occurred in the Menindee River during severely dry conditions in late 2018 and early 2019, with locals estimating millions of kills.
The department’s investigation involving scientists and experts in the Murray-Darling Basin found that those events were also caused by a lack of dissolved oxygen, amid very low or no water flows, high temperatures, and blooms of blue-green algae.
Looney said there should be an investigation into the water management and fish deaths.
“It’s getting ridiculous,” he said.
Several state and federal departments are responding to the latest mass killing.
Up to a million fish have died in a freshwater basin in far western New South Wales as locals demand answers and government officials investigate (fish in the Darling River pictured)
Local Geoff Looney posted a series of worrying photos of the basin and questioned whether there would be a state investigation into what was killing the native fish.
“I am very concerned as this water is used for our town’s water supply and a lot of people drink it,” local Geoff Looney said of the latest fish kill at Menindee in far west New South Wales.
In 2019, locals took pictures of the hundreds of thousands of fish (pictured) found dead along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Darling River after a prolonged dry spell.
The state government has blamed the ‘environmental catastrophe’ of dying fish (pictured) on the weather.
