Video by Associated Press
KYODO NEWS VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thousands of tons of dead sardines were washed up on a beach in northern Japan for unknown reasons, officials said Friday.
TOKYO – Thousands of tons of dead sardines have washed up on a beach in northern Japan for unknown reasons, it said Friday.
Sardines and some mackerel appeared Thursday morning in Hakodate, on Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido, creating a silvery blanket along a stretch of beach about 1 km long.
Local citizens said they had never noticed anything like it. Some gathered fish to sell or eat.
The city, in a statement posted on its website, suggested citizens consume fish.
Takashi Fujioka, a researcher at the Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute, said he had heard of similar phenomena before, but this was the first time he had noticed it.
He said the fish were likely chased by larger fish, became exhausted due to lack of oxygen as they moved through a densely populated school and were swept away by the waves. Fish may also have suddenly entered the ocean without blood. their migration, he explained.
The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the water and affect the marine environment, he said.
“We don’t know for sure in which cases that fish was discarded, so I don’t recommend” eating it, Fujioka said.
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