Still investigating fish kills, I found an interesting report:

[MineralMan]

From North Carolina, this is their official fish kill report for the year 2008. In it, all notable, large-scale fish kills in the state are detailed for that year. There are quite a few of them, and scattered all over the state.

http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=35ed386b-3cec-45c4-acc5-5e3d4fef711c&groupId=38364

Have a look, if you're thinking big fish kills are something rare. I'll keep looking for other such reports. It's only national news when people make it national news. I'm guessing nobody ever heard of any of these events in 2008, but they rival the ones we're hearing about this year, thanks to widespread reporting.

[MineralMan]

1. In Florida, you can search for fish kill events in the state

database. It's a cool utility, and comes up with so many, you'll need to limit your search by time and cause if you hope to keep the number in reason.

http://research.myfwc.com/fishkill/

[Mist]

2. Thanks for posting this--important information. I live in NC and was unaware of this. nt

[MineralMan]

7. Normally, this stuff isn't news, unless someone makes it news.

Happens all the time, anywhere there is water and fish. Those who are anglers, like myself, have seen fish kills and die-offs frequently over the years. Most of them don't even get reported to anyone.

[MineralMan]

3. Virginia also has a fish kill report, which you can check out:

http://www.deq.state.va.us/info/srfishkillhistory.html

It lets you look at several years worth of reports covering the Shenandoah and James Rivers. Very interesting.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Its an annual occurrence on Chicago beaches

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/unknown-chicago/2010/07/the-alewives-are-coming-the-alewives-are-coming-94-30-1967.html

[MineralMan]

8. Yup, and on the edges of most lakes, from time to time.

Stuff dies. The populations rebuild.

[MineralMan]

5. You can find many other such sources, using this Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=fish+kill+report

It's very informative and puts all of this stuff into perspective.

[MineralMan]

6. For Bird Events, the USGS can show you quarterly records for

the past several years, too:

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/quarterly_reports/index.jsp