May 22, 2014 — Crews continued working to remove thousands of dead fish from a section of Marina del Rey, saying other marine life will be endangered as long as the decaying fish remain in the water, it was reported May 21.
The fish — including anchovies, rays, eels, sharks and other species — started floating belly-up Saturday in the marina’s A Basin near Bora Bora Way.
Brian Meux, a marine programs manager at Los Angeles Waterkeeper, said he believes a large school of fish swam into the marina when the tide was dropping amid warm temperatures, leading to a sharp drop in levels of dissolved oxygen in the water.
“What that’s like (is) if we are all here at a big football game and someone just threw a big plastic bag over the whole thing and just trapped us in, we’d all pretty much suffocate too,” Meux said.
Any fish unable to get out of the area died quickly, he said.
Now those thousands of fish are decaying, keeping oxygen levels low and releasing chemicals like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia into the water.
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