Thousands of dead fish clogging a Long Island canal will haunt your dreams

Massive animal die-offs fascinate people. In August, 323 reindeer died in Norway and social media freaked out. The fish videos are likewise going viral — and people are obviously asking what caused all these poor, smelly animals to die en masse. Environmental officials won’t say. But Chris Paparo, the manager of Southampton Marine Science Center, told CBS News that blue fish were spotted in the bay on Sunday. Blue fish eat bunker fish. It’s likely that the blue fish chased the bunker into the closed canal, causing a stampede situation where the bunker fish depleted the oxygen in the water. Fish can’t live without oxygen any more than we can, so they all died.