The fish kill is the second in a week along the New Jersey coast Watch video
LITTLE EGG HARBOR -- Some Ocean County residents woke up Saturday morning to a massive fish kill, the second large-scale fish die-off along the New Jersey coast this week.
The peanut bunker, a type of baitfish, piled up on the bay shore side and in the water of Great Bay along the Osborn Island section of Little Egg Harbor after they had been actively jumping the night before, residents said.
"It's in the bay washing up right around our boat," said Bill Koy Jr. of Mountain Lakes, who with his family was visiting his father's house on the bay. "It almost looks like an oil slick."
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Koy said he and his family were grilling dinner on the deck Friday night and noted how unusually active the baitfish were jumping out of the water.
"It sounded like rain on the water," he said.
But when they woke up Saturday morning, they found hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dead fish along the coastline.
"It's weird and concerning that this would happen," Koy said.
He said his father reported the kill to the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Bob Considine, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the fish have washed up along several lagoons off Great Bay. He said this kill, like the one earlier in the week, was caused by low concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the water and the large number of fish there.
He did not have an estimate of how many fish died in this kill but said that they were likely chased to the area by predators.
He said DEP conservation officers and emergency response staff have interviewed residents in the area who reported unusually still water with little current recently.
From several samples taken of the fish, it does not appear that they are suffering from a disease, Considine said.
For now, the DEP is counting on the winds and tides to bring the fish back to the water, but the Ocean County Health Department is monitoring the situation, he said.
Koy said the die-off is especially distressing after he heard about the fish kill earlier this week in the waterways around Raritan Bay in Keansburg and Hazlet.
That fish kill, involving more than a million peanut bunker, was cleaned up by Friday, officials had said.
