Australia fears ecological disaster after thousands more fish die in eastern states plagued by drought
- Officials counted almost 400 dead fish in a six-metre stretch of the waterway
- The river is located in the Murray-Darling system where an estimated 1 million fish died in a mass fish kill just a few weeks ago
Thousands more fish have died in a key river system in drought-hit eastern Australia just weeks after up to 1 million were killed, authorities and locals said Monday, sparking fears an ecological disaster is unfolding.
Fisheries officials said they were on their way to Menindee, a small outback town in far-west New South Wales state, after the third mass fish kill in the area in less than two months.
The town is near the Darling River, part of the Murray-Darling River system that stretches thousands of kilometres across several states and supplies the country’s food bowl.
“There’s lot of small [dead] fish … a lot of the larger fish have already perished in the last two kills,” said Menindee tourism operator Rob Gregory, adding that he counted 380 dead fish in just a six-metre (20-foot) stretch of river.
Gregory said Menindee was renowned as having one of the best fisheries in the far-west region.