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Thousands of Fish Killed After Burglars Break Into Indoor Fishing Pond

The Japanese owner of an indoor fishing pond was overcome with emotion when he learned that burglars had killed thousands of his fish. On August 2, Kazunori Yamada, 48, first noticed that a burglary had occurred at his indoor fishing pond when he noticed someone had opened a window at the back of the building and that they had also broken the door.

While burglarizing the building, the criminals stole cash, the WiFi router, and the hard drive that contained data from the camera system, according to local news outlets. However, that was hardly the beginning. Yamada later learned that some of the 3,000 fish he kept in the indoor pond died during the burglary.

He told outlets that the fish died when the burglars cut the power line to the tank’s filter system.

“To me, the fish were our company’s employees,” he said about the tragedy. “My employees were killed. For five years we’ve cared for the fish, raised them, and now all I can say is I don’t know what to do.”

He added: “The money we lost and the property damage, honestly, doesn’t matter at all compared to [the fish]. It hurts my heart so much that they were killed like this. This is so wrong.”

According to reports, in 2020, theft and property damage was the most common criminal offenses in the country. That year, people estimated there were 330.6 reported thefts and 50.8 reports of property damage per 100,000 people, respectively.

At the same time, there have been other instances of recent bizarre mass fish deaths in the Unted States.

Earlier in 2022, people saw thousands of dead fish washed up on a Staten Island beach in New York. The fish death was first reported after residents came forward, complaining of a foul smell.

California tribe believes wildfire contributed to recent fish death

The smell is believed to have been caused by the decomposition of thousands of the animal. A chemical inside the dead fish, called trimethylamine oxide, is responsible for the smell as their bodies decay.

Previously, Staten Island has been the location of thousands of dead fish in the past. In 2021, a massive amount of Atlantic menhaden were located near Great Kills Park. People found more bunker fish on the shore in 2017, where thousands are believed to have died.

Most recently, a group of indigenous people in California known as the Karuk Tribe believes a wildfire appears to have caused the deaths of thousands of Klamath River fish.

On Saturday, the tribe said that the dead vertebrates were found Friday near Happy Camp, California.

Tribal biologists believe a flash flood caused a massive debris flow to enter the river, said Craig Tucker, a spokesman for the tribe. After the debris entered the river, oxygen levels in the Klamath River dropped to zero.