When I saw this picture, it was morning, my eyes hadn’t opened up quite yet, and I thought “what’s so special of a picture of a road?”. But then it hit me. It wasn’t a road. It’s a Louisiana waterway literally covered with dead fish, crabs, stingray, eel, and there have been reports of even a whale.

The exact cause of why they are dying in such large numbers is unknown yet; it may very well be an oxygen depletion case, but usually, these cases tend to affect only some vulnerable species. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser raised the flag and distributed these pictures to the local media. It’s still uncertain if this is somehow related to the BP oil spill, and most likely there will not be any answer in this direction.

Still, authorities will have to come up with some sort of solution to this kind of problem.

“We can’t continue to see these fish kills,” Nungesser said in a statement. “We need some additional tests to find out why these fish are dying in large numbers. If it is low oxygen, we need to identify the cause.”

Photos via Billy Nungesser/WWL