Thousands of dead fish were found on Folly Beach Thursday morning.
Thousands of dead fish were found on Folly Beach Thursday morning. The Department of Natural Resources says the fish are all of the same species -- Menhaden.
DNR officials believe the fish kill could be cold related because we're experiencing below average ocean temperatures off the South Carolina coast. The discovery only adds though to a nationwide mystery involving similar occurrences of mass fish and bird deaths.
We wanted to find out what explanations are being offered up for the dead fish in Maryland, the blackbirds falling from the sky in Arkansas and bird kills reported from Louisiana to Tennessee.
First, we asked some of you.
Al Harper of Horry County said, "Maybe it was just a little puff from that nuclear plant?"
Elizabeth Bassett of Conway offered this explanation. "Really, I think it's the increase in our carbon emissions, it's the increase in the temperature of the ocean."
Wildlife researcher, Dr. John Fisher says some believe some of the bird deaths may have been due to fireworks on New Year's Eve that caused the birds to panic. "It wasn't foggy, but it still may have resulted in some disorientation of the birds and contributed to them flying into objects."
But many folks aren't buying it.
There's no shortage of theories showing up on blogs and web sites. How about gases leaking from the ground, signaling an impending earthquake, since some of the bird and fish kills happened near a fault line. Others have suggested toxic chemicals from farm fields or possibly a new strain of Avian Flu. Maybe now's the time to get that flu shot.
From the X-Files department comes speculation that the government is testing some kind of deadly beam or biological agent. A pastor from New York calls the phenomenon "Global Katrina 2", a sign of tribulation and biblical end times.
One thing's for sure.. many people are not accepting the "official" explanations.
One meteorologist suggested that what's really causing all this is... the internet. Not for killing wildlife, but for allowing people all over the world to connect random, natural coincidences into what seems like an alarming pattern.
It's not just in the U.S., reports have come in of similar bird or fish kills in Sweden and New Zealand.
