COROLLA, N.C. -Thousands of menhaden washed ashore Wednesday along an approximately two mile stretch of the four-wheel drive beach north of Corolla.
Most of the dead fish are menhaden, said Patricia Smith, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. In some places the fish are piled thick.
“It’s a significant number of fish,” she said.
State fisheries officers found no signs of marks or sores, she said. A crew flew over the site after morning fog cleared and did not see commercial fishing boats offshore. Menhaden have been known to rush ashore escaping from predators such as blue fish.
“We’re not sure at this point,” she said.
The officers collected samples of the fish for further testing. State water quality experts also went there for observation, Smith said.
The fish began to deteriorate later in the day with temperatures in the mid 70s. Sea birds feasted while fishermen gathered some of the fish to use for crab bait.
tony sacco says
another example of why I’ve said time and time the menhaden boats dump the fish to raise the price of the fish. If the fishnet accidentally opened the fish would still be alive, they dump dead fish to raise the poundage. Too much catch lower price, too little catch high prices, you see the oil production, less production to raise the price of a barrel of oil, more production to lower the barrel of oil. It’s a game the big crooks play with our lives. The Government people are being paid to protect them, it’s greed by the fisherman and the Government official, Good people are never elected to office and until then we will have corruption from top to bottom controlling our lives, this is reason the politicians hate Billionaire President Trump because he can’t be bought, they want him out of the way to have corruption as their way of life.