Thousands of dead fish piled on the dry ground where a creek normally runs into a saltwater bay from the freshwater lake above it. The fish, salmon and Dolly Varden, had run out of water on their way to spawning sites.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this,” said Michael Opheim, environmental coordinator for the Seldovia Village Tribe. “It’s pretty worrisome that we’re not getting any fish into the lake or the stream system to spawn.”
The finding was quickly relayed to the organization that has become the go-to repository for reports of unusual events in Alaska’s natural world: the Local Environmental Observer Network managed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
