At the bottom of it all

Yes, the current fish kill in Lake Taal started with an act of nature: a tropical storm. Wind blowing across the lake from the south moved the lakes' oxygen enriched top layer water to its northern shore. On the southern shore the bottom layers of the lake surfaced. Suddenly, thousands of fish floated in the water with their bellies turned up.

The effected fish farmers are quick in pointing their fingers at climate change and a somewhat active volcano causing the fish kill. Wrong. It was their irresponsible behavior that finally killed the vulnerable eco system of the lake. It’s the result of overfeeding the way too many fish cages with feeds based on chicken manure. Unused feeds sink to the bottom and create the perfect breeding ground for weeds using up oxygen.

What was washed up during the storm was oxygen-deprived water from the lake’s bottom. The waste buried at Lake Taal’s bottom finally turned up. (For an explanation read Bernie Lopez’ opinion piece. I don’t think the polarizing and finger pointing at “foreigners” exploiting the lake's resources adds journalistic value to the article. He does give a good explanation of what happened beneath the surface though.)

A lesson learned you say? Wrong again I fear. Laguna de Bay is a living (or rather dead?) example of recklessly abusing aquatic resources. Obviously, the Philippine’s largest lake with its 950 square kilometers surface are was not a big enough lesson to learn from.