STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Dead fish have been washing ashore over the past few months, and New Jersey officials have offered an explanation.
Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said the department is investigating the deaths, but has “preliminarily identified an undetermined species of bacteria” as the cause.
“The only fish species being impacted appears to be menhaden, an extremely abundant fish found in coastal areas harvested primarily for bait and non-food commercial purposes,” Hajna said. “There is nothing to suggest human health or other fish, shellfish or wildlife are at risk.”
A spokeswoman for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which is also investigating the deaths, said they are working with their own sample analysis to confirm the New Jersey DEP’s assessment.
Previously, a DEC spokeswoman said fish had tested negative for specific disease despite showing symptoms like irregular swimming patterns.
The DEP spokesman said Wednesday that more lab testing needs to be conducted to determine the exact species of bacteria, but that they’d determined it belongs to the Vibrio family, which is common in marine habitats.
Both entities have been investigating with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to determine the cause of the deaths that were first noticed late last year.
The ASMFC is a regulatory body that coordinates fish conservation and management on the East Coast. It is compromised of three commissioners each from 15 states along the eastern seaboard.
Menhaden are both an important part of the food chain and are commercially harvested for their use in supplement products, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Larger fish and predatory birds eat the menhaden, and the fish are harvested for use as as fertilizers, animal feed and bait, as well as being a major source of omega-3 fatty acids for their use in human and animal supplements.
Multiple authorities have made efforts in recent years to stimulate and protect the Atlantic Menhaden population.
The New York legislature passed and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill in 2019 that prohibited use of certain large, industrial fishing nets to take menhaden. That bill was sponsored by State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Island) -- who is one of three ASMFC commissioners from New York -- in his legislative chamber.
In August, the ASMFC voted unanimously to link how many menhaden could be fished in a year to “ecological reference points” that take into consideration larger fish populations that feed on the smaller menhaden.
Multiple readers reached out to the Advance/SILive.com in later November and early December concerned about large numbers of dead fish washing up on Staten Island’s shores.
DEC officials said in December that residents around the state had reported similar phenomenon, and that it’s not necessarily something to be concerned about.
“Die-off events of menhaden are not unusual and there are various naturally occurring causes for these events. Fish, such as bunker, that swim in large schools are particularly vulnerable to low dissolved oxygen, certain environmental pressures, and pathogens,” the DEC said in a statement.
Similar masses of dead fish washing up on Staten Island’s shores have been reported in the past, including in 2017 when the DEC offered a similar explanation.
In a November report on our sister site, NJ.com, Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan talked about the same phenomena in New Jersey.
While Sheehan said it is quite common, the report noted that the die-off events at the end of 2020 were unusual because most occur during warm weather, when things like algae bloom deplete oxygen from the water.
Sheehan said at the time that the Hackensack River was unusually warm because of a hot summer and warm fall.
“There’s no one to blame for these sort of instances,” he said. “You can blame Mother Nature.”
The DEC encourages the public to report incidents of fish die-off events by email to marinefisheries@dec.ny.gov.
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Here is what officials think caused mass die-off of fish that washed up on Staten Island - SILive.com
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