Tons of of hundreds of farmed fish have died from chilly in a lagoon in northwestern Greece after a heavy snowstorm crippled the nation this week.
The lifeless fish, seabream and white seabream, started to emerge on the floor of the Richo Lagoon of Drepano Lake early on Tuesday after temperatures within the water dropped to as little as zero levels Celsius.
“The destruction is big, it’s estimated there are round 50 tonnes of lifeless fish,” mentioned Ioannis Ouzounoglou, who works on the state-owned fish farm, after gathering some in his rowing boat.
“In all of the final years that I’ve been recording and measuring temperatures within the space, I by no means anticipated that we might have such low temperatures within the minuses.”
International locations throughout the area have been hit by a uncommon chilly snap, together with in Athens whichs was blanketed in snow.
The fish’s enclosure within the farm within the lagoon prevented them from swimming out to the deeper waters of the lake or sea to outlive, scientist Konstantinos Perdikaris from the Division of Fisheries mentioned.
“They died from thermal shock,” mentioned Perdikaris who visited the lagoon on Tuesday.
The seabream species, not like different fish, is delicate to low temperatures and can’t survive under 4C (39 levels Fahrenheit), Perdikaris mentioned. The fish have been at a shallow depth the place the chilly was faster to penetrate the water.
“At shallow depths the response of the air is extra intense,” he mentioned. Ordinary temperatures within the lagoon this time of yr are about 7-8C.
Drone video confirmed hundreds of lifeless fish floating on the floor of the lagoon and on the shores.
“Yearly we free them into the lake, however this yr sadly we didn’t have the possibility to free them in time, as a result of the frost (got here shortly),” mentioned Ouzounoglou.
The fish farm contained greater than 600,000 fish of assorted species. Different species weren’t harmed.
(Reuters)