PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) _ More than 5,400 catfish were killed in the Charlotte County Jail’s retention pond fish farm.
Sheriff’s officials first spotted the dead fish Sunday and a massive cleanup program by several inmates began Monday.
The fish were netted out of the cages, put into a large dumpster and hauled away.
Jail authorities think that a company contracted to clean the jail’s roof were likely the cause of the dead fish.
Water used in the roof cleaning process drained into the retention pond and killed all the catfish in the cages, as well as native fish in the county stocked pond.
There were also some dead fingerling catfish in the growing tanks that gets its water from the pond.
