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| Alabama Coast Spared From Cold-Weather Fish Kill |
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| By Brad Gill |
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Posted Friday February 19 2010, 1:49 PM |
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On Alabama’s coast, the silver mullet, a creek fish, was the species most impacted by the bad cold snap in January. The good-eating, 8- to 10-inch fish should rebound with no noticeable effects.
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A bitter cold snap in January resulted in headlines about saltwater fish-kills all across the South. Georgia reported shrimp kills. Florida lost some turtles, manatees and numbers of temperature-sensitive species, like snook, bonefish and tarpon. Thankfully, Alabama’s coast seemed to fare better than its sister states.
“We had a minimal fish kill,” said Vernon Minton, director of the Marine Resources Division. “It wasn’t nearly as bad for us as it was Florida. They had not only the fish, but the Florida guys picked up like 4,000 turtles. They were going into shock, and they took them back to a recovery area. There were some manatees that were in shock. It was a lot rougher on them than it was us.”
Vernon estimated the water temperature along the Alabama coast got to about 50 degrees at its lowest, which kept it warm enough to avoid a big fish-kill along Bama’s coast.
“They (Florida) have species that are more sensitive than we have. They’re so tropical.
“We’ve done some stress tests on a lot of the sub-tropicals. At 55 (degrees), they start to get lethargic and don’t move around much. At 50, they’ll lie down; they just lie on their sides. Any length of time exposure to that temperature, and it kills them.”
Although a few of Alabama’s tasty seatrout were found dead, the white, or silver, mullet took the biggest hit from the cold weather.
“They tend to stay up in the creeks more. They’re usually the ones that get hit first because the water cools so fast,” said Vernon.
Reports of dead silver mullet came from Wolf and Sandy creeks in Miflin, the west side Mobile Bay, and the most extensive fish-kill came in the Long Bayou area in Orange Beach.
“They’re a good-eating fish,” said Vernon. “They taste better to me than the other mullet. They’re not as strong. They catch them in castnets or gillnets or use a treble hook when they get piled in and snag them. They’ll be about 8 to 10 inches long.
“There are no size or creel limits on silver mullet. I do not anticipate any changes in the harvest of silver mullet due to the cold kill. In the past we have had much more extensive kills, and the population recovered with no noticeable effects.”
There was one dead manatee reported in the Orange Beach area around the Intracoastal Canal.
“After they looked at it, they felt like it was a cold kill,” said Vernon. “We don’t have a lot of manatees up here. They kind of migrate through here, so it’s disheartening to lose one. They come up here and spend the summer with us and usually turn around and go back.”
Vernon asked AON readers if they see a noticeable fish-kill, to call the Marine Resources Division Gulf Shores office at (251) 968-7576.
“Normally our worst kills come when we get a dramatic drop in temperature associated with rain,” Vernon said.
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