Thousands of dead fish wash up on Kenya coastline
Date: 01-Feb-02
Country: KENYA
Turtles, sharks, octopuses, tuna, manta ray, eels and other marine creatures have found dead along a stretch of Indian Ocean shore spanning about 1,000 km (620 miles) in Kenya and Somalia, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said.
"This is a big one. The extent points to an algal bloom," WWF spokeswoman Julie Church said. "We are seeing loads of dead fish being washed ashore. Nothing as large as this has ever been mapped in eastern Africa."
WWF suspects the deaths have been caused by an unusually big "red tide" episode. A red tide is an explosion of microscopic toxic algae that colours ocean waters reddish brown.
The phenomenon usually occurs when ocean surface waters are warm, high in nutrients and calm - typical when wet weather is followed by sunny conditions.
Scientists were surprised because the affected area in the Indian ocean is currently windy and rough.
They are currently analysing samples of dead fish and ocean water in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Fishermen along the coastline are reported to have stopped fishing for fear of poisoning.
Red tides have been known to devastate the fisheries off the U.S. coast, the Caribbean and South Pacific ocean, Japan and Scandinavia, WWF said. They occur annually off the South African coast.
Three small episodes, two of which occurred after the 1998 El Nino weather phenomenon, have been documented in Somalia, but none in Kenya.
