Dead Fish

SWAN POINT -- A combination of disease and last week's sudden cold snap might have caused the death of about 50,000 white perch in the Potomac River near this Southern Maryland community, state officials said. Thousands of dead perch were heaped along the beach yesterday beside a wall of concrete boulders protecting an upscale subdivision. Scores of seagulls screamed overhead, and flies buzzed over the rotting fish. "It's apocalyptic, seeing so much death all at once," said Mike Roller, field supervisor for an archaeological surveying company, who walked along the littered beach as he returned from a site his firm is examining for home construction.

State officials are investigating what killed thousands of fish in Marley and Furnace creeks in northern Anne Arundel County, but suspect they suffocated after an algae bloom sucked the oxygen out of the water, a Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman said Tuesday. Investigators saw an estimated 6,000 dead and apparently dying fish Monday, mostly in Marley Creek but some as well in adjoining Furnace Creek, said MDE spokesman Jay Apperson. There were at least nine different species of fish involved, including Atlantic menhaden, silversides, silvery minnows and sunfish, he said.

When the term "dead fish" became a top Google search Wednesday, soaring past the likes of Lindsay Lohan and leaving Justin Bieber in its scaly wake, it looked as if the end were near. That's what everyone was saying, anyway. After millions of tiny fish went belly up in the Chesapeake Bay this week, the populace immediately dismissed the official scientific explanation (the water was just too darn cold). What made more sense, they reasoned? The approaching apocalypse. Of course.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we present the second act of "Don Donaldo, On The Edge," being the fifth and newest opera in the fabled Don Donaldo Ring Cycle.*The embattled Lord High Governor of Maryland appeared in Act One to complain of his mistreatment. Members of Parliament, led by the villainous Senate President Millerino, criticize his legislation. The press hammers him. His once-loyal subjects send Don Donaldo nasty letters, leave dead fish on the palace steps and pour Lux liquid into the Palace Fountain.

About 2,000 dead fish found floating on the surface of a small Forest Hill pond in Friends Park north of Bel Air last Sunday died from a complex natural process and possibly improper pond management, a state official said.Walter L. Butler, a state natural resources manager, visited the pond Sunday, took water samples and inspected the site.He told county officials that his test results indicated that overstocking, warm water temperatures and normal bacteria growth had killed the bluegills.

The discovery of a parasite responsible for a fish kill in Virginia last month has thrown another variable into attempts to understand the toxic microbe Pfiesteria piscicida.Although signs pointed to Pfiesteria, Virginia scientists found that Kudoa, a parasite more often associated with fish ponds than Chesapeake Bay tributaries, killed hundreds of menhaden in the James River between Newport News and Hampton Oct. 20-22."The salinity in that part of the river was right [for Pfiesteria]; it was warm and shallow, and it was fall, the same time of the year we had the other events," said Greg C. Garman, a Virginia Commonwealth University fish biologist.

MARBURY -- On the third day of the four-day Bassmaster Elite Series tournament, Kelly Jordon made a potential life-or-death decision on the water, releasing a bass he had hooked badly and returning to the dock one fish below the minimum. Instead of coming back to haunt him, Jordon's calculation paid off. He avoided the 4-ounce penalty that goes with having a dead fish on the boat and scored public relations points by giving the fish a chance to recover in the cooler water of Nanjemoy Creek.

The source of the sewer smell many noticed in Baltimore harbor this week remains a mystery, as city officials say an extensive search has found no evidence of a sewage spill or overflow, despite high bacteria levels in water samples taken by an environmental group. Tina Meyers, the Harbor Waterkeeper , said that water samples taken Tuesday by Blue Water Baltimore , the local watershed watchdog of which she is a part, found elevated bacteria levels in two places in the harbor - in front of Pier 6 and in the deep shipping channel by the Domino sugar refinery.

Here's a look at what other media are saying about Luke Scott's comments earlier this week about his belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. The Orioles distanced themselves from Scott's remarks but stood by his right to speak his mind. Scott reiterated his right to free speech. • Craig Calcaterra of NBC's Hard Ball Talk takes Scott to task for his comments about Obama's birth certificate. Obama's birth certificate] exists and it is valid and people who argue to the contrary are either idiots or liars or sheep or all three.

Cleanup crews hauled away yesterday nearly 800 pounds of dead fish -- including hundreds of baby northern snakeheads -- from three Crofton ponds poisoned by the state to get rid of the finny predators from Asia. State biologists scooping up the bodies of 3 1/2 - to 5-inch-long snakeheads sprayed with a lethal dose of rotenone Wednesday suddenly began netting miniature versions of the dead. When they finished, they had collected 566 of the 1-inch-long fish, mostly in a tight cluster, indicating that they were probably about 2 weeks old and still being guarded by their parents when they died.