WHY? Why do we not find scattered collections of random marine life dead in the ruins of low-lying lands when hurricanes we have seen along our Gulf coastline this fall?
I have wondered about this many times, but it never seems to occur to me to ask such a dumb question when I am with someone whom might know about such odd things. Doesn't it seem logical that fish, swimming in the upper layers of the water as the most common species usually do, would be caught up in the swiftly moving currents and swept along toward the storm's set targets. Many, one could imagine some to be caught up in the scouring winds topping waves and becoming airborne projectiles aimed at any land target ahead. It seems logical that fish in abundance might be trapped or “netted” in such a manner by the storm since the is normal for the species we know to swim in the upper levels of the sea and most often in groups, that they would a be caught up the compelling currents and spread on the shore in a tumbled mass and doomed.
That is just one way in which such a situation might come to be - that fish have a sense of pressure associated with danger and that they, then accordingly swim at a lower level when the sea above is turbulent.
The sole evidence of dying sea life I have seen in the coverage of the storms and flood conditions was in a river in New Hampshire. The cameraman caught a shot of several hundred dying in a corner lull just below one of the dams being watched. That would lend credence to the “swim lower in bad times” tactics of the sea creatures.
I still wonder what we don't see more seaweed, shells, and, since many of these are offshore of large cities, what about the scoreless scows of mega-city mounds of garbage we dump “out there – somewhere”. Let's hope it can't go home again.
A.L.M. October 26, 2005 [c347wds]
