Fish Kill Event - Des Moines River
Eldon bridge over Des Moines River to Farmington Bridge.
- Event ID
- 867
- Date of Kill
- 7/2/2012
- Waterbody Type
- River/Stream
- Cause Origin
- Unknown
- Cause
- Unknown (Natural Suspected)
- Mode
- N/A
- Magnitude
- 7 (50,001 - 100,000 fish killed)
- Estimated Fish Killed
- 57,895
- Kill Length
- 34.30 miles
- Valuation
- $10,112,904.63
- Investigation Expenses
- $977.14
- County
- Wapello
- ESD Field Office
- FO 6
- Fisheries Office
- Rathbun Hatchery
- LongDD
- -92.22961
- LatDD
- 40.91995
- Created Date
- 7/2/2013 9:57:00 AM
- Last Update
- 2/18/2019 3:28:34 PM
Highlighted river segments indicate those impacted in part or whole by this fish kill event. It is not meant to represent the actual extent of the kill.
The cause of the kill was not obvious. However, stream flow has declined from approximately 5,000 cfs on July 4 to approximately 1,200 cfs on July 7 within the kill zone (See graph below). In addition, extreme weather conditions have increased water temperatures to 97 °F at all investigation sites. Historically, sizable fish kills have been observed in this stretch of river during low summer flows that corresponded with high temperatures (e.g. most recently in 2006 and 2008). However, these kills have been almost completely composed of shovelnose sturgeon. Moribund speciemens were provided to the Fish and Wildlife Service Fish Health Lab in Lacrosse WI at that time and initial indications suggested that a White Sturgeon iridovirus was involved. However, the lab was unable to verify this in subsequent testing. In this most recent case, shovelnose sturgeon were the most impacted species, but large numbers of other species of fish were involved.