Thousands of dead fish found in pond have residents questioning what happened

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News) - Thousands of dead fish have been found in a west Wichita neighborhood pond.

Mark Eisler lives by the large body of water and said the homeowners’ association maintains the pond area.

Recently, rain filled the pond, and it took a couple of days for the water levels to get back to normal, but residents, like Eisler, are unsure what happened to lead to so many dead fish.

“Something got into our pond and killed these fish,” he said. “We fish here, you know, just for fun. It’s kind of a highlight of our neighborhood. But to see all the fish dead ... it doesn’t look like any survived.”

For many who either live in the neighborhood or commute past it, they didn’t need to see it to believe it. They could smell it.

“Oh my gosh. First of all, the smell hits you right away,” Debbie George, who lives nearby, said. “This is devastation. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Even Lovelle, a Wichita man who passes the pond when he rides his bike to work, could tell something was going on.

“At first I smelled it. And I was just like, that’s really odd. It normally doesn’t smell that way,” he said.

There were a few dead fish in the morning, but by late afternoon, that number quickly increased.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment was at the pond on Friday taking samples, but said it could not comment on the situation until testing is complete.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened in a local pond. Around this time in 2025, a neighborhood pond in Goddard experienced a similar situation. Officials cited hot weather and low oxygen levels as the cause in that case.