An Australian fisherman was horrified after stumbling upon hundreds of rotting fish and a dead penguin washed up on a remote beach.
YouTuber Steve Outdoors came across the eerie discovery at 90 Mile Beach along the Gippsland coast in Victoria on Sunday.
The surprised fisherman was almost speechless as he walked along the beach, which was littered with thousands of dollars worth of dead salmon.
“Look at it, it continues along the beach,” he told his followers in a video.
Apart from the dead penguin, all the fish were of the same species and about the same size, prompting an investigation by the state environmental authority.
Several hundred large salmon have been found rotting along a 90-mile beach along the Gippsland coast in Victoria (pictured)
An Australian fisherman and YouTuber who goes by the name Steve Outdoors (pictured) stumbled upon the disturbing scene and was left speechless about what had caused the mass death.
Wearing a Bunnings t-shirt and fishing line in hand, a horrified Steve saw body after body along 200 meters of coastline.
“I’ve never said anything like that. What the hell is going on?” said the video posted on YouTube.
He was shocked by how the shocking deaths had occurred.
‘It was very disturbing. She just couldn’t believe how many there were. There were so many fish…what a waste,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
‘My father took me fishing for the first time in the 1970s and I have been doing it regularly all that time.
“But I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Along with the salmon, Steve also found a deceased fairy penguin on the beach (pictured)
Viewers were also shocked by the gruesome scenes.
One suggested the deaths could have been caused by a thunderstorm, while others believed the water could be contaminated.
The state Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an investigation into the mass fish deaths on Monday.
EPA investigators found the water was not poisonous and linked the finding to commercial trawlers seen in the area.
The findings were passed on to the Victorian Fisheries Authority, who linked the mass deaths to commercial fishermen taking advantage of recent salmon swarms.
“There is no evidence to suggest this was a natural event and we can confirm there was commercial fishing activity in the area early last week,” an EPA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
The state Fisheries Authority linked the deaths to commercial fishermen in the area who were taking advantage of recent salmon swarms.
“Although unusual, some fish caught by commercial fishermen on the high seas escape or spill from the net in the process of catching and loading onto a boat while at sea, and can wash ashore days later.”
Steve wasn’t surprised by the findings.
“I immediately suspected it might be from the trawler because the fish are all the same size, and that’s what nets do,” he said.
‘Anything smaller can pass through the nets and only catches fish of a certain size. And that also explains the case of the penguin: it has the same thickness.’