NP - The Drought Report for August 7, 2012

[David Morris]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/dead-fish-drought-11446131

Remarkably, if it gets really hot, and there is no rain, and the
rivers and streams start drying up, then things get really bad for the
fish. Of course, the sneaky — and very wealthy, Lamborghini-driving —
scientists behind the Great Climate Change Hoax are trying to endanger
further all those endangered species (like the Pallid Sturgeon) so
they can have an excuse to fasten onto liberty-loving Americans even
more firmly the shackles of the Endangered Species Act during Obama's
second term. Or something.

[...]

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So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged an
intake screen near a power plant, lowering water levels to the point
that the station had to shut down one of its generators.
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It's almost as though things have consequences or something.

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The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in
history. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of
the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought, and 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. 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 fish are valued at more
than $110 a pound.
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What's going on is a damn piscatorial cataclysm, is what it is.

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In Illinois, heat and lack of rain has dried up a large swath of Aux
Sable Creek, the state's largest habitat for the endangered greater
redhorse, a large bottom-feeding fish, said Dan Stephenson, a
biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
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Also, too...

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In Nebraska, a stretch of the Platte River from Kearney in the central
part of the state to Columbus in the east has gone dry and killed a
"significant number" of sturgeon, catfish and minnows, said fisheries
program manager Daryl Bauer. Bauer said the warm, shallow water has
also killed an unknown number of endangered pallid sturgeon. "It's a
lot of miles of river, and a lot of fish," Bauer said. "Most of those
fish are barely identifiable. In this heat, they decay really fast."
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Also, too, as well...

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Kansas also has seen declining water levels that pulled younger,
smaller game fish away from the vegetation-rich shore lines and forced
them to cluster, making them easier targets for predators, said
fisheries chief Doug Nygren of the Department of Wildlife, Parks and
Tourism. Nygren said he expects a drop in adult walleye populations in
the state's shallower, wind-swept lakes in southern Kansas.
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Kansas, it should be noted, is governed by Sam Brownback (R), who once
was concerned about the effect of dumping all that CO2 into the
atmosphere, but who then realized he'd been bamboozled by evil
scientists. Just sayin'.