1 Million Fish Dead in Bolivian Ecological Disaster

reply to post by the2ofusr1


Thanks for your reply 2ofusr1, again my appologies if this thread has lead to the gulf stream, was not my intention. But it seems that anytime weather change is mentioned, the gulf stream, axis shift, or the sun comes up and I am an expert in none, but I do know what it takes to change water temperatures and to be so extreme to kill the very life within is not just an everyday happening.

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


To your reply about snow in my particular area of BC, it was due to a lack of cold. We had a good amount of rain, but that should have been snow. Only about 1 week of -15*Celcius. If it weren't for an extreme amount of rain in the spring we would be on fire right now.

reply to post by agentofchaos


Hi agentofchaos, no fear with this post, sorry that we got off tangent with food shortages and gulf currents. Just very curious about how an entire system can cool to kill the aquatic life, and how other events seem rather extreme right now.

reply to post by loner007


Very enlightening, thank you so much for the read.

If I understand correct this is the basis..

"the biomass modifies the conditions on the planet to make conditions on the planet more hospitable"

..so the earth needs the "fertilizer" the return of this aquatic life for the planet to be more hospitable? People in the area, trees, shrubs, algae, and the new aquatic species that will dominate these waterways, will all benefit from this?

Thanks for a broader picture.

reply to post by buddha


New, "Chubbier" River Dolphin Species Found in Bolivia

news.nationalgeographic.com...

From what I have read in some Bolivian sites, Bolivia has not only been affected by cold weather coming from the South, they have also been affected by a drought, so the water levels were probably lower than they should be in this time of year.

The places where dead fish were found were all in the middle of the country, an agricultural area with many fish farms in natural and man-made lakes.

One source said that the temperature in the water reached 0º Celsius.

In one of those fish farms, the manager said that the temperatures were as low as 5º for two weeks, and they have lost around 25,000 fishes, worth some 40,000 US dollars.

Cattle has also been affected by the drought and the cold, the lack of grass forced the farmers to move the animals to other areas, but these areas are dangerous because they are more swamp-like.

Some sources, in Spanish.
Mortandad de peces por el frío
Granja piscícola registra muerte de 25.000 peces
Las comunidades benianas sufren por sequía y surazo

Wow... sounds bad all around.

www.iceagenow.com...

For a second day running it snowed in Southern Brazil and in twelve of Argentina’s 24 provinces including parts of Buenos Aires.

In Argentina the phenomenon extended to Northern provinces (geographically sub-tropical).

In Patagonia and along the Andes snow reached over a metre deep, isolating villages and causing yet undisclosed losses to crops and livestock. Temperatures went as low as minus 10C, even lower in snowy regions. Maximum temps ranged from zero to 7C.

Power consumption set new records in both Argentina and Uruguay, and hundreds of industries suffered blackouts.

In Uruguay the lowest temperatures were registered in the north and west: minus 7C.

In Bolivia, temperatures in tropical areas in the east plummeted to zero causing “millions of dead fish” in rivers that normally flow at 20C.

Santa Cruz governor Ruben Costas said the province was suffering a “major environmental catastrophe” and warned the population not to make use of water from rivers (because of the dead fauna and flora) promising to send drinking water in municipal trucks.

industries suffered blackouts.

In Uruguay the lowest temperatures were registered in the north and west: minus 7C.

In Bolivia, temperatures in tropical areas in the east plummeted to zero causing “millions of dead fish” in rivers that normally flow at 20C.

Santa Cruz governor Ruben Costas said the province was suffering a “major environmental catastrophe” and warned the population not to make use of water from rivers (because of the dead fauna and flora) promising to send drinking water in municipal trucks.

Yeesh is all I can say. It is quite wide spread down there and not just Bolivia. Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile are also affected. 26 people have died, 1000 cattle froze to death, closing schools, and snow closing travel routes. After coming out of the worst drought in 5 decades which saw livestock deaths and crop damage, now they face the lowest temperatures in almost 3 decades, quite extreme.

www.csmonitor.com...

I wonder if between the drought and now the immediate freezing, could there be some species become extinct? An insect, or frog, a plant?? Something that does not prepare to hibenate, something only found in certain areas affected? That seems to be large number of losses between the updated 6m aquatic life, some cattle loss, what else would it affect, wildlife? bees? ants? flowers? Could it cause a lost species?? Interested in any thoughts on this.

www.bbc.co.uk...

The unusually cold winter weather in South America follows one of the coldest winters for years in many parts of the northern hemisphere.

I don't like to read about people dying, fish kills, etc, so it's bad news from that standpoint. However after hearing incessant chatter about global warming and how the Earth is going to overheat to a burning cinder, it's actually nice to hear about some below normal temperatures once in a while.

While it may be the coldest winter in 3 years in some areas and in 40 years in other areas, if you can go back 41 years and find colder temperatures, it's not all that unusual. I would like to look at climates over the course of 100 years worth of temperature measurements to put in perspective, but since the human lifespan is less than that, and our memory span is even less, we don't normally think in those terms. Even 100 years is really too short a time span to consider, think about the "little ice age" that only ended in the 19th century:

www.skepticalscience.com...

The Little Ice Age was a cooler period spanning the 16th to the 19th century. The river Thames often froze over. The Norse colonies in Greenland were unable to survive the harsh winters. After 1850, temperatures began to rise. But man-made CO2 emissions in the late 19th century were a fraction of current levels. Did human activity take us out of the Little Ice Age? Were there other factors? And what does it mean for current warming? This question is addressed in Meehl 2004 which examines the various factors that drove climate since the 19th Century.

Like ArMaP said, it's a little unusual, but not all that unusual.

[edit on 8-8-2010 by Arbitrageur]

I think sometimes people forget, or perhaps never realized, that earth is a single, pretty much closed system. What happens in one part of it sooner or later affects the rest of it.

When the globe has a headache, we all feel it. What we are seeing now is an increase in extremes of weather, seeming to happen everywhere. Record cold in some places and record heat in others. Record rainfall here and drought elsewhere.

Whatever is going on with the planet it does seem to be bi-polar (in the psychiatric sense ) with everything in hyper phase at the moment. I wouldn't be one to be making too many predictions about global warming vs a returning ice age. It all just seems to be topsy turvy at the moment. Where this will end up is anyone's guess, I guess.