About 10,000 to 15,000 fish washed ashore in the most recent fish kill in Egg Harbor, EPA estimates.
LITTLE EGG HARBOR - The latest fish kill along New Jersey's shore washed up between 10,000 and 15,000 bunker in Ocean County this weekend, the state Department of Environmental Protection said Sunday.
That's far less than the estimated 1 million fish that died last week and took days to remove from Keansburg in Monmouth County.
Officials have attributed the deaths of the bunker fish to "really, really high" populations in the water, said DEP spokesman Larry Hajna.
The Ocean County fish kill was isolated to one lagoon in Little Egg Harbor, Hajna said.
"This is not really a significant fish kill and not like the one we saw last week," Hajna said. "That was really big."
Mass fish kills tend to be a result of predators chasing them into shallow, warmer waters where oxygen is difficult to come by. The fish get trapped, as authorities believed they did Saturday in the lagoon in the Osborn Island section of Little Egg.
Hajna was unsure if any efforts to clean up the fish were underway. In Keansburg, disposing the fish was projected to cost the borough $1,100.
If not removed, the fish would sink and slosh around in the tides until it became part of the water's ecosystem, but the homeowners in the area might not want to wait for the natural process to occur because of the smell, Hajna said.
Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.