oil, oxygen, and fish......

[Bill D.]

I've open this question here and in the NBR hoping to get opinions from as many RO's as possible. Thanks

Since the oil spill started and moved close to the Alabama I read articles about all the sharks along the beach. There's even video of quite a few, but in all the video's I've seen the sharks were typical inshore species, blacktips, bulls, sandbar, etc. Every article I read has tried to paint this as being caused by "low-oxygen zones in the gulf due to oil and dispersants. I've question that as the root cause mainly because all the species I have heard about along the beach are inshore typical. I agree that low oxygen areas will move fish to other places or kill them. As a lid growing up along the northern gulf coast what I'm seeing reminds me of exactly the way it was decades ago, before the use of miles of gill nets along the beach. This year the nets have been gone and massive schools of ladyfish, hardtails, blues, and such are feeding along the beach. Of course, the sharks are following them..... So my question is to other gulf coast RO's and vistors, in area's besides Alabama, see a big change. I ask this because the other states do not allow the gill nets along the beach.

 

[marathon man]

Bill D, I have been going to Alabama beaches since the fifties. I think the answer is you are right, because they can't have all the nets now, more fish are inshore,like they used to be years ago, but also, I wonder if the oil and dispersants are not driving them out of their "normal" haunts. This seems to me like both scenarios are certainly possible, and they would both help explain the "sudden" increase in sharks and other inshore species being closer in.

 

[stmbtwle]

Wouldn't that be a kicker, if this mess actually INCREASES the fish population?

 

[rduhon]

There are bacteria that feed on oil that will also deplete oxygen cause they bloom when they make contact with large oil patches.

 

[Bill D.]

Oxygen depleted zones have been a fact of life in the gulf for many years. What I'm asking is that the increase of inshore species along the Alabama coast on par with say the Ft. Walton Beach area. If they are not seeing a big change then maybe the change off Alabama then maybe it's more the no nets affecting it the most. Of course this is only in the surf that I'm referring to. We likely won't know much about offshore until it opens back up.....

 

[Thudpucker]

It'l come back Bill. Only one specie has not returned to the Valdez straights since the Exxon Valdez incident.

It would be a great thing if the Fish came back as a result of the Spill.