The Slatest

Hundreds of Thousands of Fish Turn Up Dead in Mexican Lake

Local fishermen collect dead ‘popocha’ fish at the lagoon of Cajititlan.

Photo by HECTOR GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images

Mexican officials have different opinions on what’s going on at Lake Cajititlan. Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of fish have turned up dead in the lake in the state of Jalisco. So far, almost 50 tons of dead popoche chub freshwater fish have been taken from the lake, the BBC reports, but the mass death isn’t thought to be over yet. “The local authorities said it was part of a ‘natural cycle’ but state officials said it was due to the lake’s ‘poor management,’” according to the BBC.

Local officials, Agence France Presse reports, “said the deaths were due to a drop in oxygen due to a cyclical change in water temperature.” However, the state’s environmental secretary, Magdalena Ruiz Mejia, said “the deaths were ‘more and more’ frequent and intense due to ‘bad management of the body of water,’” according to AFP.

Whatever the cause, some of the images of Lake Cajititlan are pretty stunning.