{"id":284926,"date":"2025-11-11T08:23:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T08:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/284926\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T08:23:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T08:23:19","slug":"swans-and-several-thousand-fish-die-amid-kent-pollution-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/284926\/","title":{"rendered":"Swans and several thousand fish die amid Kent pollution incident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762437852_658_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/d44cd350-be6e-11f0-ab9d-83e1c35826e9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Johnny Allen A dead fish floats in a river. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Johnny Allen<\/p>\n<p>The Environment Agency said it was investigating whether wildlife other than fish had been affected<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A pollution incident has killed several thousand fish in Kent, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">About 3.7 miles (6km) of a stream known as Sarre Penn and the adjacent River Wantsum, near Canterbury, have been affected, it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The agency said specialist officers were at the scene and it was working to establish the source of the pollution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Meanwhile, Johnny Allen, a volunteer at Kent Wildlife Rescue, told the BBC he had also recovered three dead swans from the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The EA said it was investigating whether wildlife other than fish had been affected by the pollution incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Several cases of &#8220;highly pathogenic&#8221; bird flu have also been confirmed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency in wild birds across Kent in recent weeks, including in swans. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Scientists say the <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-63464065\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">risk of the virus to humans is low<\/a>, with transmission from birds rare. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762437852_658_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cd9c2340-be6d-11f0-ab9d-83e1c35826e9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Johnny Allen A dead fish floats in the water. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Johnny Allen<\/p>\n<p>Kent Wildlife Rescue said it was working to find and log dead animals<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Allen said the source of the pollution was unclear as the water had no odour or colour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Has someone dumped something? The river runs under a road. Has something discharged from a vehicle and its got into the water system? I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; he added. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said the dead fish were bottom feeders like carp and tench, indicating the pollution may have been on the riverbed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Something&#8217;s not quite right,&#8221; he continued. <\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Distressing&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Allen said Kent Wildlife Rescue was working to find and log dead animals with the authorities, though he said their capacity was limited as they needed more volunteers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In the meantime, he was concerned about people, especially young children, becoming &#8220;distressed&#8221; if they saw dead or dying swans, and keen that dog walkers and people that went fishing were alerted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The Environment Agency said conditions in the stream were &#8220;improving&#8221; and that it had taken samples.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">It urged anyone with information about the incident or suspected pollution to get in touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Allen The Environment Agency said it was investigating whether wildlife other than fish had been affected A&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-284926","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\/284926","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=284926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}