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Sleep with the fishes? Galveston beaches covered in mysterious fish carcasses,dead zone suspected
This may not be the week to take that late-summer beach trip — unless you really like the scent of dead fish.
Thousands of dead Gulf menhaden, commonly known as shad, washed up on the western end of Galveston Island on Sunday, littering the shoreline and floating belly up in the waves, as KHOU reported.
"Menhaden swim in the thousands of fish in schools, and when they get into trouble, they just can't get out of it," Steven Mitchell, a biologist with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, told the Galveston Daily News. "I suspect the schools were swimming in a dead zone offshore, but we haven't confirmed that."
Mitchell began testing the water for pH, saline and oxygen levels on Sunday, and suspects that low oxygen may have caused the fish kill.
Watch the full KHOU report below: