Vast Fish Kill Drenches Maine Town in Stench

Residents kept their windows shut and an inn was closed as the stench from thousands of rotting fish filled the air today.

In the waters of Quahog Bay, Maine’s latest menhaden kill has suffocated thousands of lobsters, crabs, snails and other sea life.

“The eels are even dead--and they’re hard to kill,” said Linda Webber, who owns Webber and Sons Lobster Co. with her husband in this seacoast town of 2,500. She said the company has lost about $10,000 in lobsters.

Robert Waddle, owner of Quahog Lobster Inc., the other lobster dealer at Quahog Bay, said he has lost at least that much.

“The overall loss is tremendous. Not just my loss, but everyone’s loss, because everything in the bay’s been killed,” Waddle said.

Vast schools of menhaden, or pogies, first were chased into Quahog Bay by feeding bluefish about a month ago, Waddle said. The schools severely depleted the oxygen in the water, killing lobsters and other aquatic life.

Pogies are oily fish that can weigh up to two pounds and are used for lobster bait, fertilizer and cat food.

Dead pogies can be seen floating in clumps throughout the cove and are caked onto rocks along the shore.

The smell is so bad that a bed-and-breakfast on the bay closed. The inn’s owner said he and his wife will not reopen until the odor is gone.

Fish kills have happened along Maine’s coast several times in recent years, but “this is certainly a large die-off,” said Marshall Murphy, spokesman for the state Department of Marine Resources.

Murphy said the state will not attempt a cleanup in Quahog Bay. He said past cleanups have proved to be “very expensive and less than totally successful.”