Following historically low temperatures, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) has received numerous reports of fish kills. Fisheries Biologist Jason Adriance says many saltwater species, such as Spotted Seatrout and Red Drum, succumbed to the cold as water temperatures dropped below 40°F for several days.
“And so when that happens, these fish just become lethargic, and their metabolize essentially stops, and the cold stun kills them.
Adriance says LDWF has investigated 71 fish kills statewide, with the highest Spotted Seatrout and Black Drum mortalities in the Terrebonne/Timbalier Basin and the highest Red Drum and Sheepshead losses in the B arataria Basin.
“Throughout the state; we call kills in most of our es estuaries and a good fair extent of the estuaries operatic kills, some very concentrated, some a few fish but they span pretty much state wide.”
Adriance says compared to the severe freeze of December 1989, this event was shorter and less extreme.
“That was a pretty significant event in ’89. This one would probably rank somewhere with some of the winters we’ve seen in 2014 and 2018.”
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