Another sign of the (heat) times: thousands of dead fish

J. Miles Cary / Knoxville News Sentinel via AP

Crews using rakes and an industrial vacuum remove dead fish from Butterfly Lake in Knoxville, Tenn., on Monday. Some 10,000 bluegills died.

In lakes and rivers across parched areas of the U.S., heat and lower water levels are reducing oxygen levels -- and killing fish populations by the thousands. 

At one lake in Delaware, up to 6,000 dead gizzard shad and 600 perch were found floating this week.

"Aggravating this summertime problem, increased temperatures lead to warmer water, which holds less dissolved oxygen," state natural resources spokesman John Clark told NBCPhiladelphia.com.


In South Carolina, some 500 fish died at Lake Hartwell.

Celebrating the warm summer months, as schools let out and the cooling off begins

"It started Sunday afternoon," local resident Brandi Pierce told NBC affiliate WYFF-TV. "We started seeing ten fish popping up out of the water. Then Monday, it was full." 

Across South Dakota, fishermen have reported thousands of fish kills in multiple lakes and rivers.

And in Tennessee, a fish kill on Butterfly Lake left a horrid stench in one Knoxville neighborhood.

"It's really putrid," Paula Gumpman, president of the local neighborhood association, told the Knoxville News Sentinel. "It's like after a hurricane. Gooky and yucky."

Some 10,000 bluegills were thought to have died, and city workers were tasked with the cleanup even though the lake is on private property.

"It's a public health issue," said Public Service Director David Brace, "and it just smells real bad." 

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Holy Hockey Stick, this seems serious. Arguing man made global warming with liberals is like arguing cosmology with someone who believes the moon is made of green cheese. Periodic heat waves and resultant fish kills prove nothing. Well it does rather support the notion that the global warming crowd have taken on a religious fervor. If you don't accept their view about what causes climate change and toe the line regarding what to do about it, you are an infidel deserving of ridicule, punishment or maybe even death.

If liberals with PhD's suddenly disappeared from the planet, we'd no doubt have less hot air to contend with.

    Reply#83 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 8:26 PM EDT
    Reply

    The knuckleheads on the right leaning end of the spectrum are starting to make me wonder just how gullible people can be. Scary really. I'm far from a left leaning liberal, screw the damn hippies, but if someone tells you the dogs rabid do you let it bite you.

      Reply#84 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 9:08 PM EDT

      The liberals can tax us all to death and restrictive business until there is none and it will not stop climate change. You, I and all the king's horses cannot change it and only a complete fool will fall for that scam that the incompetent government can do it.

        Reply#85 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 9:10 PM EDT

        what is the explanation of these fish dying, this is happening more often. Republicans and debunkers claim no global warming. Even if it is a natural cycle the earth is going through, global warming is speeding up the natural cycle and no green initiatives will stop it. Two hundred years of man made industrialization and deforestation can't be undone especially if America is the only country taking on environmental regulations to save the planet, it has to be a worldwide effort and China and India with growing economies has refused to take part in a global effort. I think what has been done can not be undone now, green policies too little too late

        • 1 vote
        Reply#86 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 10:13 PM EDT

        Typical Chicken Little reaction to daily changes in weather, construing it to mean the end of the planet as we know it. You people really need to chill. Even IF you could make a compelling argument that these anomalies had a cause and effect relationship to man's activities on the planet, which has not been made, you still haven't a clue as to what the hell can be done about it. Your solutions are all radical leftist political statements, such as taxing the rich and corporations in some absurd punative exercise that results in nothing but misery for the masses.

          #86.1 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 10:40 PM EDT

          taxing the rich and corporations in some absurd punative exercise that results in nothing but misery for the masses.

          Which is no worse than the big corporations poisoning the environment and the subsequent masses(causing misery of their own) and burying their heads in the sand in denial.

          • 1 vote
          #86.2 - Mon Jul 9, 2012 1:27 AM EDT
          Reply

          It is all judgement and warnings from most high. Have any one notice that the fish kills are all by distinct family or types. Never will you have a gumbo of a wash up, with a little of thisand a little of that. People read your old books of the bible like Isaiah, jerimiah etc. It tells you exactly whats going on and how this generation will be so smart that they are very dumn. wake up, your God is alive and here at war with illuminati, masons, skull nand bones, governments. They wish to stop his calling. I know because i am your Lord thy God of Israel.

            Reply#87 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 11:43 PM EDT

            As a trained fishery biologist I should tell you that the fish species listed above are those that are sensitive to oxygen and temperature. The Clupeiform (shads and herrings) and Perciform (sunfishes, basses, and perches) are very sensitive to low oxygen levels (the higher the water temperature, the less oxygen the water can hold). In fact these species are so sensitive to environmental changes that they're sometimes used as "indicator species" since they're usually the first to be affected by changes in the environment. You may also notice that fishes such as green sunfish, carp, bullheads, and catfish are not mentioned, and I don't think it's a coincidence that these are the same fishes that can withstand very high pollution and low oxygen levels. Extreme environmental conditions DO NOT affect all species the same.

            • 1 vote
            #87.1 - Mon Jul 9, 2012 1:21 AM EDT
            Reply

            wakeup people, ever fish kill or bird an animal kill is by species type. when fish was ashore you are never going to get a gumbo mix together

              Reply#88 - Sun Jul 8, 2012 11:46 PM EDT

              Send them to Louisiana,we love to make a good gumbo out of them.

              Let we good times roll.

                Reply#89 - Mon Jul 9, 2012 12:15 AM EDT

                and the water will boil and the inhabitants of the water will die. when they all die, so will we. how many more signs do we need to accept that we are killing this planet ? a few more summers, each increasingly hotter and we will all be dead as well. it's time to wake the hell up!!

                  Reply#90 - Mon Jul 9, 2012 1:20 AM EDT

                  Are these all republican areas?

                    Reply#91 - Mon Jul 9, 2012 2:05 AM EDT
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