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Published: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 8:10 PM     Updated: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 8:11 PM

On Mobile Bay’s Eastern Shore on Tuesday, marine biologists investigated what was described as a substantial kill of small menhaden in a canal off Weeks Bay’s western shore near Bay Haven Drive in the Barnwell Community.

Nicole Shaffer, a marine biologist with Alabama’s Marine Resources
Division said she collected water at the site where several thousand
juvenile menhaden up to an inch long floated. The cause of the kill
won’t be known until results of tests on those samples are complete.

“Sometimes during summer, Mobile Bay suffers from low oxygen levels as water temperatures increase,” Shaffer said. “Plus, there is also the possibility there was an algae bloom that sucked the oxygen out of the water.”

But Lyons Bousson, who’s lived on the northern-most of the three shallow, manmade canals in that area for six years, said the kill is something he’s seen at this time nearly ever summer. He estiamted there were several hundred thousand dead fish floating in the 1,000-yard long, 3-foot deep canal.

“When I walked out this morning at 6:10 I saw them all over the surface and when I walked down and saw them gasping for air, I knew what was going to happen.”

Bousson’s wife Michelle called about three hours later to tell him about the dead fish. He said the same thing happened in the southernmost canal three days ago.

“The hot days and humid nights combined with the decaying leaves and other stuff on the bottom just take all of the oxygen out of the water in these canals and the fish get trapped in here and die,” Bousson said.

Shaffer said there was no obvious discoloration in the water that sometimes signals an algae bloom is occurring or has occurred. She added there weren’t any obvious signs of oil in the canal and the dead fish did not appear to have oil on them.

Reports from several fishermen and Press-Register trips to the bay over the past few weeks indicate there is a huge migration underway of menhaden, bay anchovies and mullet into the Mobile Bay estuary.