Massive Fish Kill in Gulf Caused by "Dead Zone," Oil?
Combination of "insults" may have led to the die-off, one expert suggests.
A huge fish kill in a Louisiana marsh was likely caused by annual low-oxygen conditions—but the Gulf oil spill may have been an additional "insult," experts say.
The thousands of belly-up fish were discovered Friday in the Bayou Chaland area (see map) of Plaquemines Parish.
The die-off occurred during a time of year when a giant low-oxygen "dead zone" regularly forms off the Gulf, according to Prosanta Chakrabarty, a fish biologist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Agricultural runoff into the Mississippi River contains nutrients that support the growth of oxygen-hungry algae, which can choke out other sea life.
