For the past week, thousands of dead freshwater fish have been spotted around the Pegasetic Gulf off of mainland central Greece and the municipality of Volos has been working overtime to collect and dispose of the fish, which local news reports say have led to an overwhelmingly foul stench.
A video from a local news channel in Volos, which is known for its port, shows workers from the municipality cleaning up the dead fish with fishing nets. The fish are either put in black garbage bags and disposed them, or dumped directly into trash recepticals and vehicles.
The fish first started washing up on the beach of Volos, but then began washing up in other nearby areas such as Alykes, Nea Aghialos and Anavros.
According to a report at OT, Greece’s Ministry of Environment is concerned, but this is not the first time that such a thing has happend in Volos.
The most prominent theory of how thousands of freshwater fish ended up in the sea is -flooding. The gulf areas were flooded which may have caused the fish from nearby canals to get rechanneled and end up in water outflows from the local dam that feed directly into the sea.
Unfortunately, the region of Volos is increasingly impacted by floods, with the deadly hurrican Daniel striking the region in September 2023, which led to loss of life and property, and has crippled the nearby farming industry.
Following the floods, alarm has been raised about the safety of Volos’ drinking water as well as the seas around Volos port. Experts note, however, that this recent incident of mass death of freshwater fish does is not attributed to poor freshwater quality nor the seas. Rather freshwater fish are not tolerant to exposure to saltwater.
