This week’s snowstorm may not have been a deadly weather event like hurricanes and fires often are to humans, but massive fish kills can be seen – and smelled – along Alabama Gulf coastal waterways.
The record-breaking snowfall that blanketed Baldwin County on Tuesday also brought with it record-low temperatures to levels mullet and some other species that populate habitat in the region’s warmer waters cannot survive.
Brian Jones, Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Alabama Aquarium curator, said similar cold weather fish kills have happened “every five to 10 years in our area” with the last one being in 2018. He said mullet appears to be the main species that has “succumbed to the cold,” but it will not greatly affect the ecosystem as they are “a fast-growing fish that produces thousands of eggs.”…