Thousands of dead fish stink up New Jersey town

It smells fishy in Little Egg Harbour. Photo / Fox 29 Philadelphia

The putrid stench from thousands of dead fish has stopped many residents of an American town from leaving their homes.

Tens of thousands of dead fish have accumulated in a lagoon in Little Egg Harbour, New Jersey, creating a smell so bad that locals said they “can’t breathe”.

Speaking to Fox 29 Philadelphia, local resident Joseph DiGrande said: “You really can’t stay outside more than 10 minutes.”

“It’s disgusting, it is the worst smell in my entire life. It even goes inside the house. I burned every candle I could possibly find and now I’m in my infusers,” resident Debbie Wuss told CBS News.

It gets worse.

“The birds also are a problem because now everything is covered in bird poop and feathers and it’s just another gross add-on,” Rayna Pelcak said.

Why this happened

The blame falls on the lagoon’s poor water quality and warmer temperatures.

In a statement, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Fish & Wildlife said: “Staff determined that poor water quality resulting from warmer temperatures and low dissolved oxygen in the lagoon resulted in the fish mortality in the lagoon.”

The agency added that it was an “isolated event” and that the issue would mostly take care of itself when tides “naturally” wash away the dead fish.

In April 2021, thousands of dead fish were found along Auckland’s Beachlands coastline.

In photos obtained by the Herald, the fish are seen lying lifeless in the water, along the coastline and on top of rocks near Pine Harbour’s marina.

Thousands of fish were found dead along Auckland's Beachlands coastline in April 2021. Photo / Supplied

Local Mandy Reeves, who discovered the sea of dead fish when she went for a walk near the marina, said that while she didn’t know what caused them to die it had looked like they were trying to “save their own lives”.

“It looks like they’ve tried to jump up on the rocks and get out of the water,” she said.