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Thousands Of Dead Fish Line Brevard River

POSTED: 12:11 pm EDT September 27, 2005
UPDATED: 2:01 pm EDT September 27, 2005

State wildlife officials are searching for what killed thousands of hardhead
catfish in a Brevard County, Fla., lagoon.

The rotting fish were discovered at Rotary Park in Suntree and can be
smelled by motorists along U.S. 1.

"I don't know what it is, but it doesn't smell very good," Marty Smith of
Melbourne told Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

State wildlife biologists gathered fish samples to send to the Fish and
Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.

"We're not going to know about what's causing the kill until we get samples
in," biologist Loanna Torrance said.

An official identified the dead fish as hardhead catfish, the same species
that washed up in the area on Sept. 22 and 23.

In the summer of 1996, thousands of hardheads floated up dead in the lagoon.
Biologists never identified the exact cause, but suspected a virus that
killed only hardheads.

Hardhead catfish make up 3 percent of the fish in the lagoon, according to
environmental surveys, but some scientists estimate as many as one in five
fish in the estuary could be a hardhead.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.


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