Fish find

Publication: Sunday Sun
Paper Section And Page: 1A
Paper Date: Sun, May 20, 2001
Byline: by Terry Ally and Julie Wilson

DEAD FISH are turning up on the East Coast again and officials are closely monitoring and cautiously guarded in their statements about the continuing fish kill.

The dead fish were first sighted just over a week ago. Then almost daily fish started washing ashore at Skeete's Bay, St Philip, and yesterday spread to Bath, St John. Large trunk fish, soap fish, three types of chubs, pawgies and pilchards were washing ashore while others were floating on the surf. Some had bulging eyes and guts with the fins and tail in an advanced stage of decomposition.

"It's nothing major," a senior Government official told the SUNDAY SUN, but the words were not comforting to the Barbados Marine Trust.

"It may not be major but something is wrong out there. Something is happening and needs to be investigated," trust secretary James Blades said.

An official of the Fisheries Division said they had absolutely no idea what was killing the fish and it was far too early to offer any theories, as investigations were still in progress. As part of the probe, they are conducting autopsies on the fish, examining sea surface temperatures, probing reports of possible dynamiting of reefs off Skeete's Bay last week, and patrolling the beaches daily.

However, Blades believes authorities must stop dragging their feet on the issue and get serious about the environment.

"It is time that we adopt a no-nonsense attitude about our environmental management. We donšt have much time and it is time to get moving and arrest whatever was happening before it gets worse."

In the last seven years, there have been two major fish kills in Barbados. In 1994, a large one was concentrated around The City and the West Coast, triggered by a leak from the River Road substations of the Bridgetown sewer system. In 1999, extremely heavy rainfall in the Amazon forced trillions of gallons of fresh water through the Orinoco River which inundated the islands of the southern Caribbean.

The streptococcus iniae bacteria in that water infected and killed thousands of reef fish on the South and East Coasts of Barbados, Grenada, St Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago, resulting in nearly $1 million in economic losses during the first month of the episode.