Residents of Whispering Woods noticed something fishy happening in their neighborhood the week of Nov. 3. But directors of the homeowners’ association discovered the situation was natural, though strange.
First, residents of the community observed an unusually high number of waterbirds near a pond amongst the houses. Then, they realized that the pond was full of fish floating belly-up. Within hours, hundreds of vultures had flocked to the scene to gobble up the fish.
Dolores Farrell, vice president of the Whispering Woods Homeowners’ Association, lives near the pond and took leadership of the situation.
“I called the Plant City Police, and they told us to call the HOA,” Farrell said. “I called our HOA, but we were concerned about the welfare of the birds.”
Early on, they did not know whether something toxic in the water might have caused the fish to die. Farrell called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and was directed to a fisheries staff member who was able to figure out what had happened.
The pond is at the site of what was once a phosphate mine. Because it was a mine, it is 30 feet deep, which is abnormally deep for a typical water source of its circumference. Farrell said she thought the catfish that died had been stocked at some point in the pond’s history.
Catfish are bottom feeders, and because cold water is more dense than warm water, it sinks to the bottom. A gradual change in water temperatures usually would not kill a population of catfish, but a sudden influx of cold water could shock them to death, especially if the bottom is so deep that they cannot easily swim up to warmer water to maintain their necessary oxygen levels.
The low temperature Oct. 31 was 60 degrees, but it dropped to the low 40s Nov. 1 through Nov. 3. Temperatures began to rise again after that, but it was too late. The catfishes’ fate had been sealed.
Clay Keel, president of the homeowners’ association, said he had received a few complaints from Whispering Woods residents about the smell of dead fish around the pond that week. But, the issue was resolved as quickly as possible, and the pond area was back to normal within three days.
“Once we figured out what was going on, we contacted the people who manage our waterways, and they picked up all the carcasses,” Keel said.
Local birds also did their share of the clean-up.
Keel said he didn’t think the cold snap had wiped out all of the catfish. There are also other species of fish in the pond.
“It didn’t seem to be 100% of the fish, but enough to bring the vultures,” he said.
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.