Wildlife is suffering from the hot weather in the DeKalb area lately.

Hundreds of fish were found dead in the Kishwaukee River near Annie’s Woods on Monday, said Jack Adam, environmental protection specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency in Rockford.

The carp, sucker and pan fish apparently suffocated due to a lack of oxygen in the water because of hot water and no rain, Adam said. While no poisonous agents caused the fish kills, stream samples are being analyzed, Adam said.

A university police officer spotted the corpses near the north end of lot A at 8:25 a.m. on Monday and referred the incident to DeKalb police, said UP Lt. Kathy Guimond.

To find the cause of the deaths the DeKalb Sanitary District conducted samples at four locations for the EPA, said Mike Zima, manager of the DeKalb Sanitary District.

The water at the Lincoln Highway bridge was 80.6 degrees and contained 3.5 parts per million of oxygen, while the water temperature at the College Avenue bridge was 82.4 degrees and contained 3.0 ppm of oxygen.

At the Lucinda Avenue Bridge the water temperature also reached 82.4 degrees but contained only 1.8 ppm of oxygen. At the North First Street bridge water temperature reached 84.2 degrees and had 3.2 ppm of oxygen.

Fish need a minimum of three or four parts per million of oxygen to live, Zima said.

Live fish were located at the Lincoln Highway and College Avenue bridges, Zima said.

esource conservationist Joe Bybee said local citizens contacted the DeKalb County Soil and Water Department of Conservation and reported dead fish at the North First Street location.

Biology professor James Grosklags said he is surprised the incident has not happened in the lagoon because of the extraordinarily hot weather recently.

“Fish kills in the summer due to a lack of oxygen are an extremely common phenomenon,” Grosklags said.

Ponds and other bodies of water containing a lot of organic material are especially susceptible to fish kills because bacterial decomposition of dead algae depletes the oxygen in the water, he said.

The low levels of water at the Lucinda Avenue and First Street locations also contributed to the fish kills, Bybee said.

More dead fish probably will be seen in the area because of the weather, Adam said.