By KAY BLUNDELL – The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 30/05/2009

WASHED UP: A fish on the beach at Paraparaumu is just one of hundreds.

A mass case of the bends is a likely cause of hundreds of dead fish washing up along the Kapiti and Horowhenua coastline.

The appearance of masses of dead Ray’s bream and snapper on a 60-kilometre stretch of beach this week have prompted warnings from Regional Public Health for people to avoid contact with the fish until the cause is known and pollution or toxic poisoning is ruled out.

Samples have been sent for testing and, until the results are known, medical officer of health Stephen Palmer stressed the fish should not be collected for human or animal consumption.

Greater Wellington regional council believed there were three possible causes a commercial fishing boat dumping, bio-toxic poisoning or the fish being thrashed around by wild seas.

Fisheries officer Andy Sealey has worked in the area for six years and has never seen anything like it. “It is a very strange event.”

He first noticed flapping and dead fish strewn along the coastline on Wednesday, then more the next day.

He doubted dumping was to blame, because fresh fish were found flapping in the shallows. A biotoxin was unlikely as toxic algae outbreaks were usually in warmer water.

“My personal theory is that recent wild seas pushed the fish from their normal depth of 100 to 150 metres to very shallow waters, giving them a case of the fish bends.”

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Filed under: Ali Perkins, News/Current Affairs