Dead fish littering Wisconsin shores

MILWAUKEE, July 8 (UPI) -- A die-off is causing tiny fish known as alewives to wash up on the shore of Lake Michigan and foul beaches in southeast Wisconsin, wildlife officials said.

The state Department of Natural Resources has reported large numbers of the dead fish from Kenosha to Door counties, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday.

There is no reason to believe the die-off is unusual, Bradley Eggold, southern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor, said, but the DNR has taken samples of the fish in Milwaukee Harbor for testing.

One test will be for viral hemorrhagic septicemia, a fish disease discovered in the Great Lakes in 2005 that has affected about 30 species of fish and killed thousands of gizzard shad in March.

Alewives, a species of herring, periodically die in large numbers and wash to shore, Eggold said.

Although an invasive species, they are important sources of food for prized sport fish such as chinook, coho, rainbow and brown trout, basis of a billion-dollar fishing industry, the Journal Sentinel said.