State continues its search for cause of fish kill

Further testing has revealed that fresh specimens of various fishes caught in April around Ni‘ihau did not contain detectable amounts of diphacinone, the active ingredient in rodenticide, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

These additional tests confirm that the current fish supply is not contaminated with the toxin used to kill rats, the department said in a news release Wednesday.

Earlier speculation was that the federally administered rodenticide application on Lehua, which was done to control the infestation of rats threatening native seabirds on the uninhabited island north of Ni‘ihau, could have been linked to the dead fish that washed ashore in February there and on the nearby Forbidden Island.

“We just wanted to make sure that the fish there now are equally uncontaminated,” said Don Heacock, aquatic biologist for the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources, in an interview with The Garden Island on Wednesday.

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(Source: Coco Zickos, The Garden Island)