by What killed so many fish at a well-known lake in Bedford is being looked into by authorities.
According to a news release, Bedford city officials visited Boys Ranch Lake on July 26 to look into claims of a significant decline in local fish populations, including largemouth bass, catfish, and sunfish.
We don’t know what caused it. According to Molly Fox, the city’s director of communications, Bedford authorities anticipate sharing test findings from samples collected at the lake later this week.
Through Monday morning, Bedford Parks and Recreation and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department continued to retrieve the dead fish from the lake and gather samples.
The Bedford Boys Ranch leisure complex has a small community lake next to Generations Park that is open for catch-and-release fishing. Boats and swimming on the lake are prohibited while the park is still available to the public.
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In July 2018, a similar incident occurred at Bedford Lake. That year, a nearby water main broke, releasing chlorinated water into the region, killing about 200 fish.
Residents at the time voiced worries about the lake’s water quality and how it affected wildlife. of 2015, a virus caused a significant decline of ducks in the lake, according to an NBC 5 investigation.
According to Todd Sink, an associate professor and aquaculture extension specialist at Texas A&M, mass fishkills, also known as large number fish kills, typically rise throughout the summer.
Between May and September, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, which handles wildlife and agricultural concerns throughout the state, receives four to five dead fish complaints every week on average.
According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokeswoman Kirk McDonnell, the majority of fish fatalities occur in smaller, urban ponds.
According to Sink, biologists look at dissolved oxygen levels first when looking at major wildlife kills. High temperatures, decomposing aquatic vegetation, or toxic fertilizers can cause oxygen levels, which are vital to aquatic life, to drop.
According to Sink, Texas’s top cause of fish kills is low dissolved oxygen levels.
According to him, Texas has 1.3 million privately owned ponds. Somewhere, something is always dying.
Fish overpopulation may also result in less oxygen being produced in the water.
According to Sink, biologists also search for toxins. For instance, several plants contain germs that can be harmful to species that breathe through their gills.
According to McDonnell, low water levels and algal blooms are two examples of natural causes of fish mortality.
Although fish kills are still likely to happen, cities and local organizations usually use aquatic equipment and technology to stop them, he said. According to Sink, the majority are a result of the environment’s natural process of modifying fish populations to be sustainable in a habitat with limited resources.
“No one realizes how common (fish kills) are,” he said. It’s not always a serious, frightening, or dire situation.
In recent years, there have been two catastrophic fish kills in the Trinity River as a result of chemical leaks.
A Texas Parks and Wildlife Department study found that a warehouse fire in the Foundry District in 2022 caused low dissolved oxygen levels, which in turn killed fish in the Trinity River. The next year, significant levels of chlorinated tap water leaked into the river from a water main break in downtown Fort Worth.
The Fort Worth Report’s environment correspondent is Nicole Lopez. You can reach her at fortworthreport.org/nicole.lopez.
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