An influx of anchovies lead to a mass die off impacting boats at the Santa Cruz Harbor
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV) — An influx of anchovies led to a mass die-off in Santa Cruz Harbor over the weekend.
The smell of the dead anchovies is strong at the Santa Cruz Harbor where crews have been working to remove thousands of them.
The oil leftover from the fish has raised concerns among boaters as a murky green coloring consumes the water.
The die-off began last Friday when a whale drove in a large school of anchovies who then entered the harbor.
This overwhelmed the oxygen levels in the water.
"We have most of the fish off of the surface of the water, they continue to decompose and turn into a kind of like a slime, an oily slime," Harbormaster Blake Anderson said. "That slime attaches to the water line of boats, so it is a good idea if you have a boat to come down so you can clean it off easily with a hose or a brush."
Harbor staff saw a significant number of fish entering the harbor, but the overwhelming amount of anchovies proved too much for the aeration system to handle.
"Friday night, our staff noticed that the fish were making their way in and we saw a lot of birds, so we started deploying the aerators," Anderson said. "With the number of fish we had in here, we're talking about a number in the millions, when you get that many fish in one small area, no amount of aeration is going to keep them alive for long."
Local boaters describe the aftermath of the anchovy influx and the challenges they face in maintaining their boats.
"It's a mess for the boats, it comes with pasty, oily slime it's very difficult to get off," boat owner Michael Franzino said. "It ends up smearing, some boat owners actually took the boats out of the harbor because of this."
Maryann was out cleaning up her boat after the die off.
"We're just checking to see if there's any damage from the oil, it looks like nothing is really affecting anything right now," Maryann said. "It looks pretty good, we're just starting to clean things down a little bit more, but we wanted to take it out and make sure it doesn't get damaged from the anchovies.
Crews have been working non-stop to remove the dead fish from the water.
"Our staff scooped fish up from Friday evening until yesterday morning, we estimate that we've removed about 45 tons of material just by hand," Anderson said. "That's scooping the fish out and that's transferring to dumpsters.
The dead fish are being taken to local farms North of Santa Cruz to be repurposed as fertilizer rather than dumped.
