Dead fish in pond next to library

A few handfuls of dead fish have been floating around in the pond to the south of the University Library for the last few days. Which is strange, as the pond was supposed to have been emptied of pretty much all of its fish in mid-April of this year, since the pond is to be temporarily filled with soil and converted into an access road for construction vehicles.

There is no danger of a massive fish die-off just yet, but all the same, the deaths of the ten bream are remarkable. For one thing, because the father-and-son team of Henk, Jonathan and Matthias Erkelens of Erkelens Visserij from Alblasserwaard were supposed to have removed all the fish from the pond back in April. For another, because the fish all died at pretty much the same time, says Frans van der Kroef, who works at Erasmus Sports and is an extremely experienced sport angler.

According to Van der Kroef, the fact that all the fish died at the same time is due to acute aquatic hypoxia (oxygen depletion), possibly caused by a sewer that accidentally drained into the pond, or alternatively, by large quantities of rotting water plants.