MORTALITY OF FISHES ON THE WEST COAST OF FLORIDA. 



By Harden F. Taylor, Scientific Assistant, Bureau of Fisheries. 



OCCASION FOR THE INVESTIGATION. 



Repeatedly in the past 75 years reports have come from the west 

 coast of Florida of " poison water," which killed fishes in large num- 

 bers, and also, according to some reports, other animals, notably 

 sponges. The reports and references are too fragmentary to give an 

 accurate record of the distribution of the mortality, but collectively 

 they clearly indicate that all the keys from Key West nearly as far 

 north as Cedar Keys have been visited by this plague, and that it 

 occurred in the years 1844, 1854, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1883, 1908, and 

 finally in 1916. 



REPORTS OF THE DISASTER IN 1916. 



In October and November, 1916, the mortality recurred in severe 

 form, the first visitation since 1908. Numerous descriptive reports 

 were received, from which the following significant points Avere 

 summarized : 



Fishes of a great number of species were noted dead and dying; 

 the air was charged with a suffocating gas, which not only occasioned 

 severe discomfort to man and other air-breathing animals, but irri- 

 tated the air passages, producing the symptoms of colds. This gas, 

 while exceedingly irritating, had no odor. The fishing smacks which 

 are equipped with "wells'" or openings through to the water in 

 which live fish are kept report that the whole catch died while the 

 smacks were en route to port; the normal color of the water had 

 given way to water of different color, variously described as "black 

 streaky," "amber," "olive," and "red"; the white paint of certain 

 houses near the water was temporarily blackened, apparently by 

 gases from the enormous number of dying fish. Some local observers 

 found fish dying in the sounds; others noted them in the passes and 

 in the Gulf to a distance of 45 miles out, but the abundance of fish 

 in any locality varied from day to day. The reports of the order 

 99S05°— It) 2i -5 



