Herring Apocalypse: Fish worth millions in exports die in Icelandic lake after building work suffocates them
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Stretching as far as the eye can see, dead herring blanket the ground in these chilling pictures taken today.It is not yet known what is causing the mass fish deaths in Iceland, but today’s grim find is the second such occurrence in two months.
The herring, weighing an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes and worth £18.9million, were found floating dead in in Kolgrafafjorour, a small fjord on the northern part of Snæfellsnes peninsula, west Iceland, according to the country’s Morgunbladid newspaper.
Biologist Róbert Arnar Stefánsson estimates that 7,000 tonnes of herring is laying on the shore and there are many more at the bottom of the fjord.
Both this mass death and the one in December, where a similar amount of fish died, are thought to be due to a lack of oxygen in the fjord caused by a landfill and bridge constructed across the fjord in 2004.
Fears over the costly deaths have prompted the Marine Research Institute of Iceland to visit and gather information, while Government ministers agreed to allocate money to research and monitor the situation.
School children in the nearby village of Grundarfjorour collected between 25 and 30 tonnes of the dead herring this morning for sale as animal fodder.
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Read the full article at: dailymail.co.uk
