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METAIRIE – Pictures are flooding social media of thousands of dead fish at Lafreniere Park.

Park officials say it is an unfortunate, but normal occurrence.

From park official Samantha de Castro, “We see this issue with the fish every year in the lagoon at Lafreniere park, when the oxygen levels decreases due to extreme heat. We believe those fish to be grass carp which tend to be very sensitive to oxygen levels in the water. Despite our efforts to maintain regular oxygen levels through aerators at the park, these sensitive fish often have a problem when we have high heat indexes like we did last week.”

The park is aware of the issue, and will work on cleaning out the dead fish as soon as possible.