Dead fish are littering Irondequoit Bay and Erie Canal

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Thousands of fish, dead from a viral infection and cold-water stress, are littering the open waters and shore of Irondequoit Bay and part of the Erie Canal.

Spring die-offs of fish are not uncommon, and the pathogen that causes viral hemorrhagic septicemia has been seen here before — but this year's outbreak appears to be especially bad.

"Hundreds of them are floating up. You would think they would sink to the bottom but they seem to keep going back and forth with the breeze," said George Wolf, who lives on the Webster side of the bay south of the Route 104 bridge.

"Once the weather breaks it’s going to be terrible down here. You won’t be able to go outside," he said.

Many of the dead fish are gizzard shad, a type of herring that can grow to a foot or more in length. Wolf estimated that many thousands of them have died on the bay, where their carcasses have attracted hordes of gulls and other birds.

The virus doesn't harm birds, humans and other mammals.

Gizzard shad are particularly susceptible to stress from cold water in the late winter and early spring, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

That stress combined with a confirmed low-level infection of the so-called VHS virus to do in the fish, the DEC said in a statement released Friday.

The agency said fish die-offs had been reported in Irondequoit Bay and a section of the Erie Canal at Newark, Wayne County.

A large die-off in Lake Ontario in 2005 was the first sign of the VHS virus in North America. Since then, the virus has been implicated in a number of New York fish kills, including in Conesus, Cayuga and Skaneateles lakes.

A VHS fish kill occurred in Irondequoit Bay in 2013.

That time, Wolf hauled four or five wheelbarrow loads of dead fish from the 10-foot-square basin where he keeps his boat. He buried them nearby.

This time he has a more daunting task. "I probably have 300 or 400 in that 10-by-10-foot square. I'll have 25 wheelbarrows full at least. But if the wind shifts, I’ll have more."

He estimates 5,000 dead fish litter the beach of a nearby cove.

Wolf said he's asked the town of Webster if it would help deal with the fish carcasses, but was told it had no resources available. The DEC told him the same thing.

I’m going to try to get some of these out of here today," he said Monday. "It’s going to be a long process, I think."

Read: 2013 Irondequoit Bay fish die-off caused by disease
More: DEC on the 2018 fish die-off

SORR@Gannett.com

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