Mass herring death a mystery in Norway

Scientists have yet to agree on why thousands of dead herring have washed up on a Norwegian beach in the last week.

Officials say piles of dead herring, weighing in excess of 20 tonnes, have covered a beach near the northern Norwegian city of Kvaenes, Nordreisa. This event has prompted various scientific explanations as well as speculation from 2012 doomsday enthusiasts.

44 year-old Jan-Petter Jorgensen, who discovered the stinky deposit while walking his dog, Molly, still wonders what caused the mass death among the fish. He said to the Daily Mail, “People say that something similar happened in the 1980s. Maybe the fish have been caught in a deprived oxygen environment and then died of fresh water?”.

Meanwhile, experts have come up with several theories. Some say that the small fish may have got caught up in tidal waters after larger predatory fish had chased them towards the coast. Other theories suggest that they were trapped by recent storms or that they were adversely affected by freshwater from a river delta after being trapped in shallow areas by currents.

The marine mystery comes at a time when a number of events have riled 2012 doomsday predictors, including 200 birds that fell from the sky in the US state of Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, and the discovery of 25 dead horses below a cliff just outside of Glenn Innes, New England, last month.