MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By JESSE YEATMAN, SoMdNews.com – “Thousands of dead fish lined private beaches Thursday along Lighthouse Road, the state highway that leads to Piney Point Lighthouse.

Residents and a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of the Environment speculated that the fish kill could have been caused by low oxygen in the water and high temperatures, a condition sometimes referred to as a red tide…

‘It’s been bad for the last two weeks,’ waterman Craig Kelley of Ridge said…

When fish die like that, Kelley said, they first sink to the bottom where they stay for a few days. As they bloat the fish rise and begin to float. Depending on the wind and tides they can wash up on shore, he said.

Dead, rotting fish are useless as bait, he added.

There are crab pots scattered throughout the river off the shoreline in Piney Point and three large pound nets used for catching fish are nearby.

According to one woman visiting friends at Piney Point, more than a mile-long stretch of beach along Lighthouse Road was littered with dead fish between 6 inches and a foot long.

‘There are just dead fish everywhere,’ she said.

Roman Pausch of Tall Timbers was visiting his parents who live along Lighthouse Road.

‘This is more than usual,’ he said Thursday morning while taking in the scene. ‘This seems like an awful lot.'” Read more.

By MATT DYKSTRA, QMI Agency – “EDMONTON – Beach-front property owners on Pigeon Lake were shocked Sunday morning to see ‘thousands’ of dead fish wash up on the sand along Ma-Me-O Beach.

Seagulls were feasting on the piles of dead walleye along the beach as community members led a self-started clean-up operation on the lake 109 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.

From the window of her cabin, Deborah Cresswell said she could see at least a dozen people walking the shoreline, organizing the fish into piles and shovelling them into the bucket of a backhoe for disposal.

‘It’s surprising because we’ve been going to the beach and swimming every day and suddenly … we go to the beach and it’s littered with thousands of dead fish,’ Cresswell said.

‘The fish started coming in last (Saturday) night after it was really windy,’ Cresswell said, speculating that ‘the weather gets a little too hot and when the water gets above a certain temperature, the fish all die.’

The fish aren’t small either, Cresswell said. Each fish is at least a foot-and-a-half long and would’ve made any sport-fisherman happy with his catch. Even now, the dead fish are still washing ashore, she said.” Read more.

By JULIE MURPHY, The Daytona Beach News Journal – “ORMOND-BY-THE-SEA — Officials believe that thousands of fish that washed ashore Sunday, both at Ormond-by-the-Sea and Ponce Inlet, are the by-catch of shrimp boats, a Volusia County Beach Patrol captain said.

‘We don’t know absolutely for sure, but I’ve called around and everyone seems to think they are from the shrimp boats,’ Capt. Tammy Marris said Sunday afternoon.

Crowds at Ormond-by-the-Sea thinned as the dead fish washed ashore in the early afternoon.

‘It was packed and we were swimming and swimming,’ said resident Monique Marella. ‘Then the fish came and you sure couldn’t be the water. Everyone just left.’

Marella and her companions said three shrimp boats had been with 100 yards of the shore.

‘At first everyone just thought it was (the shrimp boats), but there were so many fish,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how it could be that.’

Dead fish, mostly whiting, were visible on the beach as far as the eye could see both to the north and to the south.

Kevin Soravilla, visiting from New Jersey, was worried that a lack of oxygen or a drop in the water temperature caused the fish to die.

‘There’s just so many of them,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.'” Read more.

Mongabay.com – “In recent weeks, 512 Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) have washed up dead in Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Although badly composed, researchers do not see any obvious signs why the penguins died, especially in such numbers. Marine biologists are currently performing autopsies on carcasses and hope to determine cause of death within a few weeks.

Magellanic penguins are currently migrating from Patagonia to southern Brazil, an athletic journey that often leaves a few dead, but rarely at this scale.

The Magellanic penguin is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. The largest threat to the species is oil pollution, which researchers estimate kills over 40,000 birds annually. Loss of prey due to overfishing is another concern. The total population of this species is estimated at 1.3 million.

Penguins are some of the world’s most imperiled birds. Currently 60 percent of the world’s penguin species are considered threatened with extinction, if the Near Threatened category is included that percentage jumps to 70. Overfishing, pollution, and climate change are largely considered the most pervasive threats to the world’s penguins.” Source – Mongabay.com.

CBC News – “A fish kill in Trout River is now being called a complete kill, as scientists have discovered the incident is more severe than initially thought.

‘Everything in the area is dead,’ said Todd Dupuis of the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

The river was also hit with a fish kill last year. Rosanne MacFarlane, a freshwater biologist with the province, said the number of dead fish collected is significantly greater than last year, even though a smaller portion of the river is affected.

On a careful count of the fish collected Sunday night, MacFarlane found 1,459 fish had been collected: 1,317 trout, 20 salmon, and 122 sticklebacks. That did not include a section in Barclay Brook. MacFarlane adds that as the days pass, the chances of finding fish decreases because they are taken by predators and get buried in the mud.

‘For every fish you pick up, you usually miss four or five,’ said Dupuis. ‘So you’re probably looking in the 10,000 fish range.’

Dupuis said this situation is also different because they found dead sticklebacks among the trout and salmon.

‘They can survive in very low oxygen and very hot water temperatures. When you start finding these stickleback dead, you know it was likely a fairly toxic event.'” Read more.

By JESSE PAUL AND JAMES FISHER – “REHOBOTH BEACH — Thousands of dead, rotting fish are fouling Silver Lake along Rehoboth Beach’s southern border, the victims of high temperatures and algae that consumed too much of the lake’s oxygen.

The Fish and Wildlife Division of the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control said 1,500 gizzard shad, 2 to 4 inches long, were found floating Wednesday, along with 800 white perch. Overnight, thousands more fish died, with as many as 6,000 gizzard shad and 600 adult white perch succumbing by Thursday, along with blue gills and largemouth bass in smaller numbers.

‘Increased temperatures lead to warmer water, which holds less dissolved oxygen,’ John Clark, DNREC Fisheries administrator, said in a news release. ‘So seeing more fish kills this summer as the heat continues would come as no surprise.’

The dead fish, and the sharp, dank odor that could be sniffed from blocks away, was an unwelcome development in the wealthy neighborhood around the lake, where plenty of vacationers were in town.

‘Yesterday, it was the little fish. Today, it’s the big fish,’ said Mary Iannicelli, walking on a side street near the lake. ‘We’re just wondering if they’re gonna clean it up.’

Sherry Chappelle, who’s lived here for 15 years, said it was the first fish kill she’d seen, although she had heard of others.” Read more.

By Evan Coughlin, KSFY – “For many anglers across South Dakota, this time of year is perfect to go out, cast a line and catch some fish.

But many fishermen on the James River near the North Dakota border are now concerned; after dead fish have been found along the shores of the river.

For as far as the eye can see, dead fish are scattered along the banks of the James River near the North Dakota border.

Sportsmen like Tink Sullivan have been fishing off the banks of the James River near Hecla for decades.

‘I’ve never seen fish dead like this,’ Sullivan said.

With summer now upon us warm weather and water shortages are underway; which could translate into water restrictions upstream and less water flowing downstream.

‘We wish we could have saved them, but I don’t know the answers to how we could have, but, it’s kind of a crying shame,’ Sullivan said.

He says the water levels here along the James River have continued to decline rapidly, which he believes could be the culprit.

‘From that culvert over there, it’s probably dropped ten feet or better,’ Sullivan said.

According to Regional Fishery Manager Mark Ermer with the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department; hot weather and a lack of flow in the James River has caused oxygen levels in the water to become stagnant, killing countless fish.

All of the water releases into the James River in South Dakota are controlled by a dam in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Sullivan says releases from the dam have been very inconsistent.

‘I hope we can get a little bit of water to get the fish back, but, we don’t need the water like we’ve had in the past years,’ Sullivan said.

Sullivan says until more water is released into the James River, he expects the fish will continue to die.” Read more.

The Canadian Press – “COLEMAN, P.E.I. – The P.E.I. and federal governments are investigating after a number of dead fish were found in a tributary of the Trout River, the same area of West Prince where a large fish kill was recorded a year ago.

The province says the Trout Unlimited chapter of Prince County found the dead fish in Barclay Brook in Coleman on Thursday afternoon after a heavy rainfall the night before.

It says samples of soil, foliage and water have been collected for analysis.

The number of fish that were killed wasn’t immediately known, but 52 brook trout and one juvenile Atlantic salmon were collected for samples.

A provincial biologist involved in the investigation wasn’t available to comment.

Last July, hundreds of dead fish were found in the Trout, Big Pierre Jacques and Mill rivers after heavy rainfalls but officials said it was likely that thousands of fish were killed.

After that fish kill, a farmer was fined $3,000 last September after he pleaded guilty to farming within 200 metres of a watercourse boundary without the protection of a grass headland.

The P.E.I. government says the provincial departments of Environment Labour and Justice, along with Environment Canada, were involved in the investigation.” Source – Winnipeg Free Press.