March 8th, 2011
01:35 PM ET

Millions of dead anchovies float to surface in Redondo Beach

Enough anchovies to top much of the world’s pizza and Caesar salads have floated lifelessly to the surface in Redondo Beach, California's King Harbor, according to a local newspaper.

Officials say millions of the pungent, oily fish are covering the sea bottom in the harbor. They began rising to the surface Tuesday morning, the Daily Breeze in Torrance, outside Los Angeles, reported.

“We need to get rid of them,” Sgt. Phil Keenan of the Redondo Beach Police Department told the paper. “This is going to create a terrible pollution and public health issue if we don't.”

Fire, police and public works officials have yet to cite a definite cause, but Keenan said the fish appear to have died from lack of oxygen.

There were no red tides (oxygen-depleting algae blooms) or other obvious phenomena that could have caused the mass deaths, the paper reported.

“Yesterday, everything looked absolutely normal,” Walter Waite, who lives at the harbor, told the newspaper. “This morning when I got up, there were millions and millions of them floating everywhere.”

The temperature in Southern California is expected to climb into the 70s Tuesday, exacerbating the urgency of removing the scads of 6-inch fish scattered throughout the harbor.

Read CNN's full coverage of the dead anchovies in a California harbor
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Filed under: Animals • California • Environment • Nature • U.S.
soundoff (493 Responses)
  1. Big Wally

    Do I see a new special from Domino's in the near future?

    March 9, 2011 at 1:32 pm | Report abuse |
  2. dslfarms

    our local newspaper tells that they are sardines

    March 9, 2011 at 1:39 pm | Report abuse |
  3. Steve

    Ask 10 people if they've heard about the dead birds in Beebe, Arkansas and 5 of them will say they've never heard about it. This massive fish kill in Redondo didn't even make the Dallas Morning News today.

    Will a major, "reputable" news source, such as NBC or FOX or CBS...anything the average american "trusts"...will they ever write an article that makes people think about ALL of the strange and unexplained fish & bird kills?

    The dead black birds in Beebe Arkansas, the dead drum Fish on the Arkansas River, the dead birds in Kentucky & Louisiana, the dead sardines in Argintina, the dead sardines in Maryland, the dead crabs in England, the dead turtle doves in Italy, the dead birds in Sweden. Google this stuff and see if I'm making it up. All of these things have happened since the first of the year, just in the last few months. Is this normal??? Hell no!

    March 9, 2011 at 1:47 pm | Report abuse |
  4. Ed

    I smell trouble, nope its dead fish.

    March 9, 2011 at 3:48 pm | Report abuse |
  5. Greg K

    I think it was fireworks again....

    March 9, 2011 at 5:12 pm | Report abuse |
  6. Perry L Bingham

    As scientists will soon learn water is in control of life. The planet, it's people and animals, of everything that exists in our universe, and all other universes too. The water is tired of path of self-destruction. It's trying to give us a warning to stop killing this planet. If we don't the water will stop us. Water has intelligence beyond what we can only imagine. When it feels it has no other choice but to stop us, it will. It will turn itself into a state that can't used by mankind. After all of mankind dies from the lack of water, it will turn itself back to it's natural state. This planet and everything on it will live on never again to be threatened by man. And all will be well. WATER HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN CONTROL AND WILL ALWAYS BE IN CONTROL, WITH OR WITHOUT US. WE STILL HAVE THE OPTION TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE AND CHANGE OUR WAYS. BUT THAT DECISION NEEDS TO BE MADE SOON. REAL SOON !

    March 10, 2011 at 2:45 am | Report abuse |
  7. Perry L Bingham

    Trust me the water killed the fish. Wait and see what it does next. Those dead fish will be like a drop of water being compared to the ocean. It's been trying to warn us: New Orleans, broken oil pipe, a sunami, what more can it do? We need to listen. It gave us the answer in quamtom theory. We're just not smart enough to figure that out. We want it to mean something else, but it doesn't. It was our ' written notice ' . Only a few more efforts will be made. If we don't respond properly to those efforts that will be it. The water will do what it must do. And we will cease to exist.

    March 10, 2011 at 2:59 am | Report abuse |
  8. Ralph

    This fish kill has to be Bush's fault, or could it be Obama's Gulf Oil Spill that slipped through the Panama Canal while he wasn't watching and now causing the fish kill on the left coast.

    March 10, 2011 at 10:52 am | Report abuse |
  9. Ralph

    The last time I checked the dictionary, an anchovy was defined as a small fish.

    March 10, 2011 at 11:28 am | Report abuse |
  10. scientist

    Scientists don't know everything as evidenced in long list of so called facts they changed their minds about; things they previously stated were fact but have since reversed their thoughts

    March 10, 2011 at 2:04 pm | Report abuse |
  11. J. Slaskey

    Well I think we can all quit guessing WHY the fish wound up in the marina – they were blindly running (ok swimming) away from the impending earthquake.

    March 12, 2011 at 7:16 am | Report abuse |
  12. mikey

    Anything to do with the earthquake?? Were there any studies or theories ?

    March 15, 2011 at 1:19 am | Report abuse |
  13. Jez

    Interesting how the most greedy, selfish, and racist city in all of California (next to Torrance) will now have a smell fitting of some of the people that live there.

    March 15, 2011 at 1:37 pm | Report abuse |
  14. Pablo Andres Odpsoapd

    Awesome article ! precisely what i used to be following, many thanks much. To match what you wrote, listed here is a customer focused place for :latest Beach News at K2

    January 18, 2012 at 12:53 am | Report abuse |
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