In Mably, in central-eastern France, nearly eleven tonnes of fish were found dead in a pond.
Eleven tonnes of fish were found suffocated in a pond in central-eastern France, in Mably, due to drought, the Loire Fishing Federation said on Tuesday, adding that a rescue operation saved one percent of them.
A total of 80 volunteers “removed 10.5 tonnes of dead animals on Monday and another 500 kilos this (Tuesday) morning” from the Cornillon pond, near the Loire, the longest river flowing entirely in France with 1,006 kilometers long, Vincent Garnier, the development manager of the local fishing federation, told AFP.
During a rescue operation organized via social networks, the volunteers went “to search, with large landing nets, for the tiny percentage of fish still alive in order to quickly release them in the Loire”, continued the manager, this which saved a hundred kilos, he said.
Backwater
Nearly three-quarters of the asphyxiated animals were carp and the rest were predators such as zander, black bass, eels, as well as catfish brought back by the floods of the Loire, and white fish, detailed this same source. “In order to avoid a health disaster, we urgently decided not to wait for the arrival of a knacker but to dig a pit where the corpses were deposited and covered with quicklime, then with earth”, said explained the technician of the federation.
The lowering of the level of the Loire, whose groundwater supplies the pond, has made the water stagnant. “Combined with the rise in its temperature which reduces its oxygen level, this constituted the perfect cocktail for the development of abundant aquatic vegetation”, detailed Vincent Garnier. “The high consumption of oxygen by these algae during the night reduced its rate there in 15 days from 12 milligrams to 0.4 milligrams per liter of water”, he detailed.
In pictures: Disastrous spectacle on the Dune du Pilat after the fire
France, like many European countries, experienced one of the worst summers with exceptionally high temperatures and a historic drought, with less than one centimeter of rain falling on average over the country in July. Groundwater is emptying to a worrying level, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) recently warned.