Mass die off of fish in the waters of Lakeport, California, USA

Warm water, lack of oxygen and a heavy biomass load in Clear Lake are among the factors that local and state officials believe are behind a fish die-off in the Lakeport area that occurred over the weekend.

 

Melanie Pressley, who lives on the lake in the north Lakeport area, said the lake looked good on Saturday night, but when she got up Sunday, she saw hundreds of dead fish on the water.

 

She said there was a wide variety of fish involved in the die-off – “big, small, medium, anything in between.”

 

Pressley said that in the 10 years she has lived at her current residence in Lakeport, she’s never seen such a die-off, although they’re not uncommon on the lake.

 

“I’ve heard of it, I’ve never seen it in a big mass like this,” she said.

 

Carolyn Ruttan of Lake County Water Resources said she got a report of the die-off on Sunday. She confirmed Pressley’s statement that all types of fish were involved.

 

The area where the die-off occurred starts at Berger Bay, which Ruttan said is the midpoint between north and south Lakeport on the eastern side of Clear Lake, and moves south along the southern part of the lake’s upper arm.

 

“In my opinion, it’s low oxygen,” Ruttan said of the die-off’s cause.

 

Ruttan explained that it’s fairly common for such die-offs to occur in the summer when oxygen levels drop, “especially in those coves and little nooks and crannies around our lake where there’s very little water movement.”

 

She said there was another die-off two to three weeks ago in Cache Creek.

 

Warm water can’t hold as much dissolved oxygen as cold water, which is why fish dive down deeper, looking for cooler temperatures, Ruttan said.

 

In such cases, she said boats on the lake help with moving the water and improving conditions.

 

Pressley said she emailed the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which sent out a representative on Monday afternoon to visit with her.

 

She said the Fish and Wildlife staffer also raised the issues of low oxygen levels and heat.

 

“They’re looking into other things as well,” she said.

 

Ruttan said another factor is that a cyanobacteria bloom is going on. She said it is prevalent in the Oaks and lower arms and most of the upper arm, even in the middle of the upper arm. 

 

“This particular cyanobacteria has been blooming off and on since May,” she said.

 

Ruttan said the cyanobacteria bloom creates oxygen but also uses that oxygen at night. 

 

The progress of decomposition also requires oxygen, Ruttan said.

 

“The amount of biomass in our lake right now is enormous,” and much of it is due to that cyanobacteria bloom, Ruttan said.

 

Some fish in the lake that were introduced and not native – such as threadfin shad – suffer terribly from big temperature and oxygen swings, Ruttan said. In past years there have at times been large threadfin shad die-offs on the lake.

 

She noted that the bass is one of the most robust fish, although it relies on threadfin shad as a food sources.

 

Ruttan said often it’s the larger, older fish that get hit the hardest by low oxygen conditions. 

 

“Seniors are not as able to grab as much oxygen,” she said, explaining that their gills don’t work as well, and because they’re already compromised they just succumb.

 

Pressley said there is still a big mass of dead fish by her home.

 

However, she said a group of vultures and pelicans – which she and her family are jokingly calling the “Lakeport cleanup crew” – are doing their part to disperse the fish by eating them.

Courtesy of lakeconews.com

http://tinyurl.com/gwdb8v4

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Hundreds of dead fish found in a lake, ‘never seen this before’ in Oklahoma, USA

Authorities are investigating what caused hundreds of fish to die at El Reno Lake this weekend.

 

William McCormack has lived in El Reno all his life, and he goes to the lake often.

 

He said this weekend something was different.

 

“I came out to test my boat. I’ve been working on it, and I noticed there was fish just floating everywhere,” McCormack said.

 

It wasn’t just one or two but hundreds of fish.

 

McCormack sais he’s never seen anything like it.

 

“I’ve never seen fish kill out here. I mean, it’s got a pretty good flow through and, even the years before when the lake was low, you’d think that’s when they’d have it, but it wasn’t, and the lake’s full right now,” McCormack said.

 

Authorities believe the extreme heat has been taking away the oxygen in the water, and that could be the reason for the fish kill.

 

However, McCormack isn’t so sure.

 

“It’s been that way every summer. This summer has been cooler than most, so I kind of wonder about that,” McCormack said.

 

He’s got his own theories of what the cause could be.

 

“They’ve sunk a lot of green trees. There were fresh cut trees in the lake to attract fish and, then, last Sunday or last weekend, they had the smoke on the water jet boat races here. I don’t know if the fuel dissipated in the water and caused it or whether it’s an algae kill,” McCormack said.

 

Soon enough, the fire department was alerted.

 

“They just saw my Facebook post and came out and started picking up some fish. I guess, they’re going to send them off and have them analyzed, see what was wrong with them,” McCormack said.

 

No word yet on what the official cause is.

 

Courtesy of kfor.com

http://tinyurl.com/jk4vt75

Hundreds of dead fish found in a lake in South Dakota, USA

Some might say fish in Huron aren’t doing swimmingly.

 

Hundreds of fish have died, all due to low oxygen levels at Ravine Lake.

 

Earlier this week, three truckloads of dead fish were pulled out of the water.

 

The lake was also closed to swimmers just days before the Ravine Lake Triathlon.

 

Organizers of the Ravine Lake Triathlon had to put the pedal to the metal this week after they found out the swimming portion of their event was going to have to be cancelled.

 

The event planners found out two days before the race that triathlon participants wouldn’t be able to swim in Saturday’s event.

 

Kim Rieger planned and participated in the race.

 

She says the water has been tested and it’s safe for swimming, but after she went to the lake Thursday night to get the course ready, organizers decided to not include the swim.

 

“There were lots of fish floating belly up and a very strong smell and you could see the fish from shore. It really wouldn’t have been any fun for swimmers to swim with dead fish,” she explained.

 

Officials with Game Fish and Parks say the fish were killed by low oxygen levels caused from hot temperatures, lack of wind and an algae bloom in the lake.

 

GFP says this isn’t the first time this has happened at Ravine Lake. It has happened many times, but it’s been a decade since low oxygen levels killed this many fish at once.

 

At this point, GFP officials can’t say when the fish will stop dying.

 

Mostly carp and bull heads are being killed. 

 

Official says they do plan on restocking the lake at a later date with other fish anglers prefer to catch.

 

Courtesy of ksfy.com

http://tinyurl.com/zck5d4b

Massive die off of fish in a lake in Indiana, USA

Photo of dead fish at Point Lake Apartments in Greensburg

Residents at Lake Point Apartments in Greensburg were concerned when they found a large number of fish dead in their apartment pond.

 

Officials with the Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife said this is a case of a shallow retention pond that quickly heated up due to intense temperatures lately, and caused the fish to die off due to lack of oxygen.

 

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management also looked into the situation and said nothing suspicious was suspected, but they will continue to investigate.

 

Courtesy of cbs4indy.com

http://tinyurl.com/jcje2sl

300 sea birds have washed up dead since May in Washington State, America

Scientists are looking into the deaths of hundreds of seabirds in the eastern part of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington state.

About 300 rhinoceros auklets, which are closely related to puffins, have washed ashore since May, the Peninsula Daily News reported. Julia Parrish, executive director of the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, says there’s no clear explanation.

“We’ve never seen anything like 300 rhinoceros auklets wash ashore in the eastern Strait,” she said. “There’s definitely something going on.”

Dead birds have been found at Discovery Bay, Dungeness Spit near Sequim and across the strait near Victoria, British Columbia. Some have been sent to the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center for testing.

About 72,000 of the birds are successfully breeding on Protection Island, a wildlife refuge near the mouth of Discovery Bay, Parrish said, so a lack of food doesn’t seem to be the issue.

Scientists also are looking into possible contagions or poisons, but if that were the case, Parrish said she would expect more to have washed up. She also said there could be a small algae bloom adding toxins to the food supply.

The organization has hundreds of trained volunteers monitoring the beaches in the Strait and recording what they find, she said.

The British Columbia Beach Bird Survey is recording the dead birds found on the Canadian shore.

Courtesy of komonews.com

http://tinyurl.com/j3r2hfw

Super-rare ball lightning moving across Siberian field

Water Rescues from Phoenix Floods

MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE WEAK MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 12:00, 20:30 HRS UTC

**VERY URGENT**

  MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE WEAK MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 12:00, 20:30 HRS UTC. FURTHER EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANO ACTIVITY & ADVERSE WEATHER PATTERNS WILL BE GREATLY INFLUENCED BY THE COSMIC RAYS STRIKING THE EARTH’S CORE

***BE ALERT***

MAGNITUDE 5.1 NORTHERN MID ATLANTIC RIDGE

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=522191

Subject To Change

Depth: 10 km

Distances: 1330 km NE of Cayenne, French Guiana / pop: 61,550 / local time: 14:49:30.9 2016-08-05
1463 km NE of Paramaribo, Suriname / pop: 223,757 / local time: 14:49:30.9 2016-08-05
1574 km E of Bridgetown, Barbados / pop: 98,511 / local time: 13:49:30.9 2016-08-05

MAGNITUDE 3.0 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, USA

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=522177

Subject To Change

Depth: 5 km

Distances: 167 km W of Los Angeles, United States / pop: 3,792,621 / local time: 08:45:52.9 2016-08-05
27 km NW of Santa Barbara, United States / pop: 88,410 / local time: 08:45:52.9 2016-08-05
14 km SE of Santa Ynez, United States / pop: 4,418 / local time: 08:45:52.9 2016-08-05