An Australian fisherman was shocked to find hundreds of rotting fish and a dead penguin washed up on a remote beach.
YouTuber Steve Outdoors came across the eerie discovery on Sunday at 90 Mile Beach along Victoria’s Gippsland coast.
The shocked fisherman was almost at a loss for words as he walked along the beach, which was littered with thousands of dollars worth of dead salmon.
“Look, it just keeps going, all the way down the beach,” he told his followers in a video.
Apart from the dead penguin, all the fish were of the same species and about the same size, prompting an investigation by the state environmental authority.
Hundreds of large salmon have been found rotting along a 90 Mile Beach, off Victoria’s Gippsland coast (pictured)
An Australian fisherman and YouTuber named Steve Outdoors (pictured) stumbled upon the disturbing scene and was left unsure what had caused the mass death.
Wearing a Bunnings shirt and fishing line in hand, a shocked Steve saw one carcass after another along 200 meters of coastline.
‘I’ve never said anything like that before. What the hell is going on,” he said video posted on YouTube.
He was stunned at how the shocking deaths had occurred.
‘It was very disturbing. I just couldn’t believe how many there were. There were so many fish, what a waste,” he told Yahoo News Australia.
‘My father first took me fishing in the 1970s and I have done it regularly all that time.
“But I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In addition to the salmon, Steve also found a deceased Fairy Penguin along the beach (photo)
Viewers were also shocked by the gruesome scenes.
One suggested the deaths could have been caused by a wild thunderstorm, while others thought the water may have been contaminated.
The state’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an investigation into the massive fish kill on Monday.
EPA investigators found the water was not toxic and linked the find to commercial trawlers seen in the area.
The findings were passed on to Victoria’s Fisheries Authority, which linked the mass deaths to commercial fishermen taking advantage of recent salmon runs.
“There is no evidence to suggest it was a natural event and we can confirm that commercial fishing activity occurred in the area early last week,” an EPA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
The state Fisheries Authority linked the deaths to commercial fishermen in the area taking advantage of recent salmon runs
‘Although uncommon, some fish caught offshore by commercial fishermen escape the net during capture and loading onto a vessel while at sea, and can wash up days later.’
Steve was not surprised by the findings.
“I immediately suspected it might have come from the trawler because the fish are all the same size, and that’s what nets do,” he said.
“Anything smaller can get through the nets, and it only catches a certain size fish. And that also explains the penguin: it has the same circumference.’