Dead Fish

State officials said yesterday that preliminary tests have not identified what killed 10,000 fish in a Somerset County waterway that drains into the Pocomoke River near Shelltown.The local waterman who alerted state officials to the kill said he suspects it is connected to the mysterious lesions that have been found on fish in the Pocomoke since last fall. Such lesions that are now turning up in other Chesapeake Bay tributaries such as the Susquehanna, Magothy and Choptank rivers.The Maryland Department of the Environment, which is leading the investigation of the Sunday die-off, has collected samples of water and fish tissue for analysis and expects results within a week or so, said MDE spokesman Quentin Banks.

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.

"You know, in Chicago, we have a very unusual association with people that work for us."-- Dan RostenkowskiI had just finished my freshman year at college and needed a summer job. So I did the usual things: responded to classified ads, went to employment agencies, made phone calls, sent out letters.There were a lot of kids doing the same thing, however, and I was getting nowhere. But the father of my girlfriend was a community activist who happened to know Marshall Korshak, city treasurer of Chicago.

The raven, a subspecies of the crow family, is an intelligent, fearless bird whose crafty nature earned it a place in Native American mythology. Of course, it also feeds on dead fish and road kill. Either way, it seems to fit the NFL's bill as an animal that reflects the aggressive, cunning, image of the sport. Some other facts about ravens:Size: About 2 feet in length, with a wing spread of 4 feet.Color: Plumage, bill and feet are black; feathers have a purple luster.Diet: Eats all kind of animals -- even swooping in on weakened ewes or lambs (or Rams?

When most people see a dead fish, they think dinner. But yesterday, a group of elementary school students took a good look at dead fish and thought art.More than 800 students at Arthur Slade Regional Catholic School in Glen Burnie participated in the school's first annual "Spring into Art" day, where they learned that many unusual things can be used to create art, even dead fish.Students in kindergarten through eighth grade used a variety of objects, including sponges and frozen fish, to make designs and prints on T-shirts.

Dead fish, foliage horridOn a recent stroll around the lake at Centennial Park, I was disappointed to see evidence of the heavy use of weedkiller.One could hardly walk 10 feet without noticing large clumps of brown vegetation along the pathway.Not only were the skeletons of large weeds visually unappealing, but the view was psychologically disturbing.I was wheeling my 17-month-old daughter along this pathway of chemicals and wondering if it was safe for her to be there.It was even more disturbing when I looked down in the water and saw dozens of dead fish rotting by the shore.

Department of Natural Resources officials, faced with a number of dead rockfish floating in the upper bay, are pushing through an emergency regulation to deal with the problem.The regulation would be aimed at anglers who use live eels for bait.Last year, after the rockfish season ended, the Striped Bass Advisory Board recommended the state prohibit eels as bait during non-rockfish seasons.Striped bass often take the eel deep into its gut before an angler knows he has a fish on his line. If the angler attempts to retrieve his hook, the result is often a dead rockfish.

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.

Tom Gruber will be getting a different type of Christmas present this year.The Lothian resident caught a 265-pound tuna off Wachapreage, Va., which turned out to be the largest tuna registered in the annual Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament.The minimum size to qualify for a tuna citation is 70 pounds, and 98 citation-size tuna were landed in 1990.A total of 2,296 trophy-size fish were registered for citation awards in the 33rd Annual Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament, which ran from April 15 through Nov. 30. This was a decline of more than 250 from last year, when 2,883 citations were awarded.

"I'll eat my shorts if they over-catch the allocation," said Eric."I agree," I said -- not meaning that I'd eat anybody's shorts, but that I also did not think either the charter boat or recreational fishermen were going to catch enough keeper-size rockfish to close the season.The conversation took place on my boat earlier this week as we bounced home from Pooles Island. Eric is Dr. Eric May of the Department of Natural Resources.The DNR had received reports of a large number of dead rockfish floating in the Pooles Island area, allegedly caused by catch-and-release fishing.