Hundreds of Fish Mysteriously Wash Ashore on Florida Beach

Hundreds of fish mysteriously washed ashore along a portion of Ormond Beach in Florida on Monday morning, and officials are still trying to figure out what brought them there.

Capt. Tammy Marris, spokeswoman for Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue, says the fish were found Monday scattered over a section of a couple of miles near Cardinal Drive in Ormond Beach. To be exact, the dead fish stretch from Standish Drive to Neptune Drive.

Marris says Florida wildlife officials took several pictures of the scene and sent them to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) so they could investigate the matter, News13 reported.

"It could be any number of things," said Capt. Mike Berard, with Volusia Beach Safety and Ocean Rescue. "It could be something offshore, winds that it just brought in. It could be a boat that's dumped something. We haven't had any reported human effects related to this incident."

FWC spokeswoman Kelly Richmond said based on one of the pictures the agency received all the dead fish appear to be spot croakers.

"Without samples we can't confirm it's that exact species, that's just what we saw in the picture," she told the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

And though the agency is still looking into the cause of the fish's demise, Richmond believes trawling is to blame since the practice is common in the area. It's a method of fishing that involves pulling a net through the water, and sometimes smaller fish are a bycatch and get stressed and die, she added.

"At this point without any further evidence we are leaning towards a trawler net dump," Richmond said.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama recently signed a bill to provide $82 million to help fight toxic algae. Though algae are not believed to be the cause of this latest incident, it has been blamed for similar fish kills in the past, WKMG Orlando reported.