Earlier this month, more than 1,300 tons of dead sardines and mackerel were spotted floating just near the fishing port of Hakodate. Nobody knows what killed them and now they're washing ashore, absolutely covering a beach in the coast town of Nakiri.
"I've never seen anything like this before," one fisher said. "It makes me wonder if the marine ecosystem is changing."
Conspiracies abound that wastewater released from the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant killed the fish but the Japanese government says that's untrue.
From The Guardian:
Experts have speculated that the migratory fish in both areas had become stranded after being chased to the point of exhaustion by amberjack and other predatory fish. Mass mortality events can also occur when there are sudden drops in the water temperature, causing the fish to go into shock, they added.
But no one has been able to confirm the cause. "The cause is unknown at the moment," Mikine Fujiwara, a local fisheries official, told the newspaper. "We plan to sample the seawater at the site and examine it to uncover the cause."
(via Coast to Coast)
illustrative featured image: ifiStudio/Shutterstock
