SAN ANTONIO — Hundreds of dead fish have been found floating in Calaveras Lake, which is just southeast of San Antonio.
The heat leads to oxygen in the water depleting. Making it hard for fish to breathe and unfortunately killing them - according to Texas Parks and Wildlife department. Fishing guide Manny Martinez says the lack of wind isn’t helping – since wind can usually help aerate the water. He says this type of occurrence is not unusual.
“This lake at times the water temperature when I was on it the other day was 97 [degrees]," Martinez said. "By 12, 1, 2 or 3, it’s 105 degrees. It happens once a year maybe every two, three years, here, more at Lake Braunig.”
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) Kills and Spills Team received notification of a fish kill on the morning of August 13 from Texas Game Wardens. The reported location of the fish kill was at Calaveras Lake, located in southeast Bexar County and managed by CPS Energy as a cooling reservoir for nearby power plants. The CPS Energy Environmental Operations Staff took dissolved oxygen readings on-site and TPWD was able to confirm that low dissolved oxygen in the water was the cause of the fish kill. This occurs when the water temperature rises, resulting in the amount of oxygen the water can hold being reduced. This is a seasonal event that is fairly common for Calaveras Lake.
The majority of fish involved in this event were red drum, which TPWD stocks in the lake, and shad, a common bait fish. TPWD estimates around 1,000 fish were affected by this fish kill.
A game warden with Texas Parks & Wildlife confirmed with KENS 5 that heat and hypoxia, the lack of oxygen to tissues that help sustain bodily functions commonly results in fish washing ashore dead.
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