Experts call it a winter-kill. Onlookers call it devastating. Thousands of fish - much more than originally thought - are now dead in Ravenna Lake.
Game and Parks officials said the extended ice and snow coverage this year blocked the sun and killed aquatic plants. Without plants producing enough oxygen an estimated 3800 fish suffocated.
The massive amount of algae you see may also have been a factor.
Nebraska Game and Parks Commissioners said they'll decide what to do next in April.
"We'll have to first start with a sample of the fish population to determine how complete the kill was, we suspect it's pretty significant, and based on that survey we'll probably recommend fish stocking - probably largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish which were the main species in the lake," said Brad Newcomb, Nebraska Game and Parks.
Newcomb said it could take two to three years to replenish the fish population in the lake.
Meantime, with the cooler temperatures it could take a month before the dead fish decompose.
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Canada's waters can be ice covered for six months and more because we have the longest and second coldest winter on the planet! This is a GLOBAL phenomenon and yet in each massive die-off a local cause is cited. It's time authorities looked at the big picture! It is muych more plausible to assume that due to the rapid geologic upheavals the Earth is now experiencing that toxic gasses are being released into streams, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans and causing these massive kills.