Fish in this Fort Worth neighborhood pond have gone belly-up. The culprit? Texas heat.

The lifeless silver and white bodies of hundreds of fish bobbed against a receding shoreline Monday at a catch and release pond in the Villages of Woodland Springs in far north Fort Worth.

The culprit: Unbearable, unforgiving Texas heat.

All of Tarrant County is under severe and extreme drought and hasn’t seen a good rain in ages. The sun and heat have wreaked havoc across the county, causing a wildfire to ignite simply from the rays hitting glass bottles in a trashcan and a fire to break out along the Trinity River during a downtown Fort Worth fireworks show on the Fourth of July.

Bregan Brown, the coordinator for Texas Parks & Wildlife’s kills and spills team, said that fish kills due to heat are common this time of year, especially when there’s a lack of consistent precipitation.

The warmer a water column is, the less it has the ability to carry the dissolved oxygen fish need in order to breathe, Brown said.

Brown’s team has responded to at least 20 fish kills this summer in her region, which covers North Texas, the Panhandle and most of East Texas.

Officials at Fort Worth’s code compliance office had no reports of the dead fish in the neighborhood pond, nor did officials at U.S. Fish and Wildlife or Texas Parks & Wildlife, though those two offices would have no jurisdiction over a private body of water. A code compliance officer for the city came to the scene after the office received an inquiry about the fish from the Star-Telegram.

Juli Ragland, the city’s environmental manager, told the Star-Telegram Monday afternoon that the city found no signs of slicks or discharge in the area. Water test results revealed low oxygen levels and high temperatures. A team from the city’s parks and recreation office was expected to clean up the fish Monday afternoon, Ragland said.

Neighborhood resident Chris Cabianca took notice of the fish about a day ago as he fed ducks on his morning walk. At first he saw the receding shoreline and smelled something fishy. A few small fish were on the shoreline, but Cabianca didn’t make anything of it until he was on his way back from his walk and saw even more piled up in the water by the bridge.

“It’s a sight you don’t see very often,” Cabianca said.

Cabianca has never seen anything like it the neighborhood, though he’s only lived there about a year. The best thing he could compare it to was a sci-fi movie apocalypse.

“What’s next Locust???” he wrote in a Nextdoor post that garnered more than 100 likes as of Monday afternoon.

The pond features a fountain in the middle that Cabianca says doesn’t always work.

Brown said fountains in ponds serve two purposes: They make them pretty and they help circulate dissolved oxygen. Given the weather conditions, Brown said it’s likely a nonfunctional fountain could’ve exacerbated the problem.

A representative from the Villages of Woodland Springs’ HOA did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Monday afternoon.

The sight attracted eyes Monday morning, albeit mostly in the form of wildlife itself. A swarm of at least 20 black vultures hung close, hoping to catch a bite, distinguishable among the pond’s population of ducks and herons.

And as one walker crossed the bridge, all she could do was stop and stare at the lifeless pile before continuing on her way.