Featured website about Red Tide: Fish Kill

Web Based Resource Information for Fishkill events in the Philippines

A massive fish kill of bangus occurred in Bolinao, Pangasinan on February 1, 2002 involving tons of fish that were valued at P400 million pesos. Investigations conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Region I (BFAR) office indicated that the fish kill was a result of reduced dissolved oxygen in the water. The University of the the Philippines Marine Science Institute (UP MSI) observed the proliferation of the phytoplankton, Prorocentrum minimum that is also associated with some fish kills. A week after this event occurred, the major proponent put up a website using information and photos gathered by the MSI (UP MSI) researchers and also compiled from newspaper reports. The website displayed photos of floating dead fish in cages, beach areas covered with beds of dead milkfish, affected reef fish, land and aerial photos of the fish kill site, the clean-up that was organized by the community later and links to other daily newspaper that reported the fish kill event.

A search on the Internet showed that there were two foreign-based websites that are seriously monitoring fish kill incidents in their national waters. These are the Fish Kill Database in Australia that is being maintained by New South Wales Agriculture with URL at http://www.agric.nsw.gov/ and the North Carolina State University’s Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology monitors fish kill events in fresh- and estuarine waters in the United States. The URL is http://www.pfiesteria.org/. At present, such kind of web-base resource information for fish kill incidents do not exist in the country.

This site (http://fishkillevents.serveftp.org) initially compiled information during the 2002 fish kill in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines and then proceeded with the documentation of subsequent fish kill incidents in the country. Fish kill incidents are serious issues especially where human mortalities and human impacts are involved.

A repository of historical information on fish kills incidents such as this website is a means to help policymakers, the scientific community, students and the general public to make informed decisions and to reduce the possibility of future fish kills.

Benny T. Campos and Dosette R. PanteWeb Administrators of
http://fishkillevents.msi.upd.edu.ph/mos/Frontpage/