VIGAN CITY – Thousands of tilapia died as 20 cages in a riverside barangay here were hit by fishkill yesterday.
The fishkill threatens to spread to 80 more cages lined up in a large section of Mestizo River here.
Narding Lacaden, a fish pen operator, said he was surprised that only the big fish died, leaving the small ones alive.
Fish pen operators suspected that a green algae in the cages triggered the death of tilapia.
Mayor Eva Singson Medina ordered the disposal of the fish into pits.
Earlier, fish cages in the neighboring Barangay Don Lorenzo Querubin in Caoayan town suffered the same fate, with a big number of tilapia found floating along the river.