Thousands of dead fish found floating in Long Island waters

Thousands of dead fish were spotted floating in the waterways off of one Suffolk County town on Monday.

Chopper 4 footage from the Shinnecock Canal off of Hampton Bays shows scores of dead bunker fish floating near the water’s edge and in marinas. In one dinghy, a pair of workers can be seen scooping the fish out of the water.

State officials said they think predators chased the school of fish into the canal. Then, because the water was inundated with fish, many of them died from lack of oxygen. Officials are taking water samples to confirm the theory.

Earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of fish floated to the water in a similar die-off in New Jersey’s Raritan Bay. In that instance, officials said that the fish were likely chased into the bay by bluefish or skates, and once there they were killed off by low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water.