Podcast name: Fish Kills Aquarium Chemistry Noe, Eden, Raquel Key: []= Clip from interview Right

Now at 2 min 10 sec [approximately] with Sound Bites + 58 sec Total: 3 min 8 sec Millions of dead fish fill King Harbor, in Redondo Beach California. From a distance it almost looks like the water has been covered with concrete. But up close you can see it is a mass of small, grey anchovies floating on the surface of the bay. A duck moves slowly through the dead fish while seagulls squawk overhead. This shockingly disturbing sight accompanies the horrible stench of decaying fish that ruins the beauty of the boat harbor. In 2011 this was a harsh reality for locals of Redondo beach, a charming town in LA county. It cost the city 425,000 dollars to clean up the devastating mess. An unbelievable amount of large-scale fish deaths, similar to the one in Redondo Beach, are occurring all around the country, California, New Jersey, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. But this is a global issue that has happened in many other countries including, Brazil, Bolivia, China, The Philippines, New Zealand, England and Norway. We hear the cover story everywhere, TV, Radio, Newspapers. But what is really happening?

We are a group of students at High Tech High International who wanted to find out how such horrific incidents are happening, so we investigated the science behind these fish kills. It turns out this problem is being caused by humanitys lack of care for the environment. We spoke to Matthew Curtis, who works for the U.S. fish and wildlife service for the federal government, and he informed us that: The number one reason for fish kills, is a low oxygen environment which can be caused by a lot of different things.[Matt: 2:34-2:41 Total 7 sec] These low oxygen levels are suffocating millions of fish at a time, in medical terms these fish are suffering from hypoxia. Ed Parnell a Rainicolgist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography explained to us the issue at hand: Hypoxia is really two different phenomena, there is one that is fueled by human activities directly and thats kind of the fish kills you hear about in the Gulf of Mexico. [Part 1 Ed: 37-49 Total 12 sec] He explained that the nutrients humans use for farming are washed up into rivers, lakes and oceans. These nutrients fuel algae growth, and as that algae is eaten by bacteria, the oxygen supply in the water is used up. Another cause of oxygen depletion, is temperature change.

If you heat up water it can hold less oxygen [Part2 Ed: 44-46 Total 2 sec] As we know pollution has caused drastic temperature changes. Global warming is preventing sufficient dissolved oxygen to support life in our oceans, lakes and rivers. As pollution increases, more and more fish kills will happen. Not only does temperature change affects waters ability to hold dissolved oxygen, but Ed explained that: warmer waters will increase the growth in bacteria and more quickly strip out the oxygen [Part 2 Ed:1:14-1:20 Total 6 sec] So temperature change has a very monumental and deadly effect on a fishs environment. To help remove some of the pressure on the environment we need to make sure all of our trash is disposed of properly and less toxins and algae-growing nutrients are released into bodies of water. The byproduct of our activities is disturbing the marine ecosystems so we have to keep that in mind.[Part 2 Ed: 3.373.40 Total 3 sec] In the beginning of the industrial revolution we were little pockets of civilizations, cities, villages that we really impacted our surrounding more locally, but now we have impacted on a global scale [Part 2 Ed: 1:46-2:00 Total 15 sec] So the fact that we are on this planet and we our impact in a large scale and our population is growing means that our capacity to impact it even more is accelerating and so you have to sit back and think about that [Part 2 Ed:3:08-3:21 Total 13 sec]

Preventing large fish kills begins with reducing the amount of litter and biological toxins that we put into our oceans, rivers and lakes. Humanity needs to become more conscious of the decisions we make that could ultimately destroy our marine life. Imagine a world without fish...The food chain and balance of our eco-system would be completely altered. While the fishing industry may not collapse during our lifetime, we are quickly depleting a resource vital to humanitys long-term well-being.