Queensland authorities are investigating the deaths of thousands of fish that washed up on a popular Gold Coast beach.<\/p>\n
The state environment department said dead baitfish had been observed at The Spit, at the northern end of the Gold Coast<\/a> since last Wednesday, but no obvious source of pollution had been found.<\/p>\n A spokesperson said water quality monitoring \u201cindicated high water temperature and low dissolved oxygen in the area\u201d, which can cause fish deaths.<\/p>\n Concerned locals posted videos showing dead fish along the shores of the popular spot over the weekend and expressed frustration that warning signs did not appear to be in place for swimmers.<\/p>\n The president of Save Our Southern Gold Coast, Kath Down, said \u201cthere were thousands of fish that had obviously been there a long time\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt smelt terrible. They were all throughout the water and up on the high tide line,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Down was concerned families with young children were swimming in the area, particularly when the cause of the incident was still being established.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what they died of \u2013 whether they were chased by a predator or there wasn\u2019t enough oxygen \u2013 but kids shouldn\u2019t be in the water with them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A Gold Coast city council spokesperson said water quality testing had shown \u201cthe water is safe for swimming but we are asking people to avoid the area while clean up is under way\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe City is working with the Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation to investigate this matter,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n Dr Leonoardo Guida, a marine biologist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said although authorities were still determining the cause of the fish deaths, \u201cearly reports suggest they are temperature-related and as a consequence there is low oxygen in the water\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Guida said, generally speaking, the body temperature of fish was \u201cdictated by the water\u201d.<\/p>\n As the temperature of the water rose, the activity levels of the fish increased and they required more oxygen.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve got water that gets so hot that it doesn\u2019t have enough oxygen to support that, the fish literally choke to death,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In recent years, Australia\u2019s oceans have experienced record high temperatures.<\/p>\n Guida said higher ocean temperatures were affecting marine life around the country, pointing to the mass marine deaths from South Australia\u2019s algal bloom<\/a> and coral bleaching off Western Australia, including at Ningaloo Reef<\/a>, as recent examples.<\/p>\n He said such events affected biodiversity, communities and economies and emphasised the need for a fast transition to net zero. He said policies to help build resilience in marine species populations, including species that were commercially important, would be essential.<\/p>\n The Queensland environment department\u2019s spokesperson said council staff had collected water samples and results would be reviewed as soon as they became available.<\/p>\n They encouraged members of the public to report any fish deaths to the department\u2019s pollution hotline on 1300 130 372.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland authorities are investigating the deaths of thousands of fish that washed up on a popular Gold Coast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-204792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}