BRAZORIA COUNTY, Texas — There may still be some remnants of dead fish along Brazoria County's Bryan Beach, but it's looking a lot better compared to last week.
On Friday, miles of dead fish covered Bryan Beach, but on Monday, most of them were gone.
"It looks normal. Like it always is whenever we come out here," said beachgoers Maria Saldana. "It doesn't look any different."
"I did have a fishy smell when I got here, but I didn't even now," said beachgoers Roxana Lumbreras.
Brazoria County Parks worked sun up to sun down to clear most of the beaches of the miles of dead fish.
“It was a pretty Herculean effort quite frankly by our Parks staff," said Director Bryan Frazier. “As smelly as it was, you get your crews out there. They’d start at one, they get it done, they push it back on the dunes, they start again.”
The thousands of dead fish along the coast is an irregular event but not uncommon, according to experts. They said the spile in temperatures and relatively calm waters created a lack of oxygen for the fish.
“It’s something that has historically happened here on the upper Texas coast, as well as all over the Texas Coast," Katie St. Clair, the sea life facility manager at Texas A&M University at Galveston said.
The dead fish were buried on dunes, mostly to eliminate the smell, but the fish will also serve as fertilizer for the dune grasses.