DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Warm weather and recent flooding are being blamed for a fish kill on Big Sandy Lake, about 60 miles west of Duluth.
Mike Bruesewitz, Aitkin area fisheries manager for the Department of Natural Resources, tells Minnesota Public Radio (http://bit.ly/MQWejN) that heavy rains last month washed a lot of decayed organic material into the lake. When it reached warm water, microbes in the material consumed the dissolved oxygen that fish need to survive.
Bruesewitz says dead northern pike, perch and crappies have been found in Big Sandy. But he says warm-water species like bass and panfish should be OK. He also says fish populations are resilient and usually rebound without much intervention
High temperatures have also been blamed for killing thousands of fish in several southern Minnesota lakes in recent weeks.
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Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mpr.org
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
Comments (4)
Add commentmississippi river "eutrophication"
"Excessive heat," flooding waters, agriculture run off, roadway/stormwater pollution to burnt decayed organic material (ie.peat) has caused this depletion of plankton. As concerned environmentalist, will the ecosystem of the Mississippi River watershed continue to suffer, also what happens to the "excessive contamination?"
Those nutrients in the river
Those nutrients in the river are going to end up in the Gulf of Mexico and re-create the Dead Zone.
Did Fishhead go swimming there?
Fishhead, I know that you spray your clothes with permethrin. Did you by chance go swimming in Big Sandy Lake without removing them?
Permethrin is toxic to fish and should be kept out of all bodies of water (1). It was highly toxic to fish in laboratory tests, but showed low toxicity in field tests (23). Aquatic ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the impact of permethrin. A fragile balance exists between the quality and quantity of insects and other invertebrates that serve as fish food (2).