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Tens of thousands fish die in Kedungombo
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Thousands of dead farmed fish are collected in Kedungombo Dam in Central Java. Fish farmers believe the cause was extreme weather that made sedimentation and fish feed residue rise from the bottom of the dam. (JP/Ganug Adi Nugroho)
T
housands of red tilapia and common carp in bamboo cages belonging to fish farmers at Kedungombo Dam, Sragen, Central Java, have died over the past two days.
The farmers suspect extreme weather was the cause.
Daryono Gundul, one fish cage owner, said the most of the dead fish were found in Ngasinan village. In the past two days, 15 to 25 tons of fish died had each day.
“Each farmer has suffered different levels of loss, starting from hundreds of thousands of rupiah to tens of millions of rupiah,” Daryono said.
Mitra Tani suffered the biggest loss, he said, because the owner moved his aquaculture cages too late.
Ngargotirto village head, whose name is also Daryono, said every year in Kedungombo fish in aquaculture cages died. Change in weather caused fungus that killed the fish. He said the fungus came from the sedimentation and residue of fish feed, which rose from the bottom of the dam in extreme weather.
Besides moving the cages to edge of the dam, farmers also supplied oxygen by creating air circulation using pumps.
Another farmer, Suharno, said some of the dead fish were cut into pieces for feed while others were buried.
Suharno said there were 81 fish farmers with 1,600 cages in Ngasinan village alone. Each day the village produced 5 to 7 tons of fish per day to meet demand from Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali. (evi)
