Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Ashore As Midwest Waters Heat Up

Posted By Staff on Aug 7th, 2012

Thousands of dead fish Common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Public domain image from USFWS National Image Library. Created by Duane Rave

Thousands of Fish Die in Midwest Heat

As the Midwestern United States suffers from the worst drought combined with searing temperatures in 50 years, thousands of dead fish are turning up in lakes and rivers as water temperatures rise to almost 100 degrees, reports ABC News.

“It’s something I’ve never seen in my career, and I’ve been here for more than 17 years,” said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “I think what we’re mainly dealing with here are the extremely low flows and this unparalleled heat.”

One of the worst cases of fish killed occured in Iowa when water temperatures reached 97 degrees, hot enough to kill more than 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon.

The massive die-off has caused a loss of $10 million to the state since the sturgeon are a prime source of caviar produced from their eggs.

Thousands of bass and catfish have likewise turned up dead in rivers in Illinois, with several endangered species threatened with extinction, including the greater redhorse fish in Illinois and the pallid sturgeon in Nebraska.

Flammang said since July, more than 3,000 existing heat records have been broken throughout the Midwest and forecasters can’t predict when the devastating heat and drought will end.

“Those fish have been in these rivers for thousands of thousands of years, and they’re accustomed to all sorts of weather conditions,” he said. “But sometimes, you have conditions occur that are outside their realm of tolerance.”

The following facts compiled by the AP give a good picture of just how bad things are:

• Iowa DNR officials said the sturgeon found dead in the Des Moines River were worth nearly $10 million, a high value based in part on their highly sought eggs, which are used for caviar.

• The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought.

• The Department of Agriculture has declared more than half of the nation’s counties — nearly 1,600 in 32 states — as natural disaster areas.

• More than 3,000 heat records were broken over the last month.

from:    http://www.dbtechno.com/us/2012/08/07/thousands-of-dead-fish-as-midwest-waters-heat-up/?utm_source=scribol.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scribol.com