Around 50 dead fish, including trunk fish, surgeon fish and parrot fish, were found washed up on the beach at Fort St. Catherine yesterday afternoon.

Fisheries bosses immediately sent two officers to the scene to investigate and collect samples.

And Senior Fisheries Officer Dr. Brian Luckhurst said top American scientists could be contacted to help find out what killed them.

Marine scientists at US universities are still baffled about a mystery poison which killed hundreds of pinfish in Harrington Sound in September.

The fish died following a period of unusually high rainfall and a drop in seawater temperatures.

The most popular theory is that microbes called "red tide'' caused gill infections which killed the fish.

But Dr. Luckhurst said it was too early to tell what killed the fish at Fort St. Catherine.

He added: "We have had quite high tides, a lot of bad weather and heavy rain recently but we just couldn't say if that's a factor.

"It's extremely difficult to determine what the cause of death might have been at this stage.

"We are also hampered by the fact that these fish had begun to decay and we believe they had been on the beach for some time.

"We can contact various people abroad but scientists really need good fresh specimens which are properly preserved and properly handled.

"Most of the fish found on this beach had dried out substantially and started to deteriorate and break down.

Scientists studying dead fish mystery "Their eyes were sunken and dried out and there were various other indicators which suggested they were killed some time ago.'' Dr. Luckhurst said a member of the public called the Fisheries Department after finding the dead fish at the high tide mark as he walked along the beach.

"They were mixed in among the seaweed and quite high up the beach,'' said Dr.

Luckhurst. "We sent a couple of staff down there to start inquiries but thankfully this is nothing along the scale of the findings at Harrington Sound.

"We counted about 50 dead fish and we have a broad estimate of the composition of the different species which were killed.'' But he added that it was "a complicated procedure'' to set up a screening programme to find out what caused the deaths.

"The problem is that we don't have a lab set up at the moment,'' said Dr.

Luckhurst. "We know we are at a disadvantage because of various factors but we will make some inquiries to see what we can find out.'' Marine biologists do not believe pollution killed the Harrington Sound fish.

Instead, they believe natural chemicals -- deadly to fish -- may have been produced by the freak El Nino weather system and caused an increase in toxic plankton in the Sound.

Photos by Tony Cordeiro DEAD ON THE BEACH -- Fisheries worker Tammy Trott (top) collects a dead parrot fish from Fort St. Catherine beach yesterady, while a dead cowfish sits on the sand (below). More than 50 fish were found washed up at the high tide mark.

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