MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Eddie Fitzgerald, Havelock News – “A large fish kill reported on the south shore of the Neuse River between Flanners Beach and Hancock Creek this past weekend has Neuse Riverkeepers concerned.

George Matthis, executive director of Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation, said Tuesday morning he was unsure what caused the fish kill or how large it was.

It was still being investigated Tuesday morning, he said.

‘People started seeing dead fish on the river late Saturday between Flanners Beach and Hancock Creek,’ Matthis said.

By Monday, the fish kill was spotted down river near Camp Don Lee in Arapahoe, he said.

Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper based in New Bern, said he does not believe there was a massive fish kill that stretched across the river to areas near the camps in Arapahoe but thought it was a large kill.

‘I think the winds shifted directions and they floated to the north side from the south side,’ he said.

Someone had reported to Blake on Monday that the dead fish consisted of flounder, croaker, menhaden and blue crab.

Blake was investigating a huge clam kill Monday in the Neuse River in Kinston that he thought could be associated with what was killing the fish.

Tuesday afternoon, Blake and a biologist working in Kinston, said Asian clams were turning up dead in the river from about Seven Springs to Kinston and the highest concentration of them was in Kinston. He did not find any in the river at Goldsboro, he said…

‘Oxygen depletion will affect a clam just like a fish,’ he said. ‘And rapid changes in water temperature will affect it. There is some kind of change happening there. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.'” Read more.