REGIONALâHiking by the water may be something to avoid for a few weeks this spring as some NâWest Iowa ponds and shallow lakes experience winter kill.
Winter kill is a seasonal event where fish wash up on shorelines and beaches in the spring after ice clears off lakes.
Mike Hawkins, a biologist for the Spirit Lake District Fisheries of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, explained that winter kill happens when oxygen levels get too low.
âItâs like a bank, youâve only got so much oxygen there and as you use it up or take oxygen out of the system through biological oxygen demand or decay, you can run out of it before the ice goes off in the spring,â he said.