Thousands of fish rescued from Enkhuizen canal dead-end

Tens of thousands of dazed fish were rescued by sport fishermen and members of a local water board after they followed each other like a herd into the Zuider Havendijk, a canal which comes to a dead-end in Enkhuizen, Noord-Holland. Once trapped there, the school of fish ran low on oxygen and became too confused to swim out again, experts explained to NH Nieuws on Friday.

Not all of the fish could be saved, but many were freed, the local broadcaster reported. "A lot of them are still swimming around," said one man involved in the rescue. "Of course you are never completely satisfied, but the majority is taken care of." Boats in the canal complicated the matter, as the fish would swim under them and hide where they could not be reached.

At first, the Hollands Noorderkwartier water board, HHNK, and fishermen placed an oxygen pump in the canal where the fish were trapped, in hopes that it would help the fish focus on escaping, and that they would swim out on their own. They also tried stretching a large net across the entire width of the canal to try to trap and move them.

However, after almost a week in the dead-end canal, the fish had to be saved by members of the Sportvisserij MidWest club and the HHNK in boats. “We are talking about tens of thousands of fish stacked on top of each other,” an HHNK spokesperson told NH Nieuws prior to the rescue. “It is just like an elevator with a lot of people.”