Australia is Facing a Serious Ecological Crisis: A Million Fish Dead After Toxic Algae Bloom

Up to a million fish have died along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Darling River in far west New South Wales, in an event the State Government has described as "distressing".

By Rhys Carman and Sara Tomevska, ABC News

Representative Image Source: Pixabay, labeled for reuse

The mass killing at Menindee, near Broken Hill, came after a similar incident in the same part of the river less than a month ago. According to the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), toxic blue green algae is again to blame.

Among those affected are native species including bony bream, Murray cod and perch.

DPI's Fisheries Manager Iain Ellis said the event was unprecedented.

"I've never seen two fish kills of this scale so close together in terms of time, especially in the same stretch of river," he said. "In both cases it's when the algal bloom has been disrupted. "The first time due to a storm, and in this case, by the cold front that went through."

Peter Dockrill at Science Alert magazine called this issue an unprecedented ecological crisis, that no one is paying attention to. In contrary to the official statements, many believe that this is a man-made problem of a significant scale.

Read more about this on ABC News Australia.

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Taxonomy

• Pollutants
• Water Pollution
• Fisheries
• Environment
• Algae
• Pollution
• Aquatic Environment