South’s Fisheries and Food Chain Upset : Drought Turning Nature Upside Down

Bill Croft doesn’t bat an eye any more when anglers return to his fishing camp on the Altamaha River with tales about the shark that got away.

Sharks are usually rare this far upstream from their natural home in the Atlantic Ocean, about eight miles east of here, but the searing Southeast drought has cut the flow of the meandering Altamaha so much that salt water is penetrating farther and farther inland, bringing sand sharks, stingrays, blue crabs and other salt water species into the murky depths where the catfish is usually king.

“There was a fella here just the other day who caught a 30-inch-long sand shark while he was out fishing for cats,” said Croft, 40, co-owner of the Two Way Fish Camp just south of Darien. “For a while, he thought he had the biggest catfish in the river.”

The sharks in the Altamaha are a dramatic example of what is turning out to be a remarkable sideshow to the devastating Southeast drought. While most attention has been focused on parched farmlands and thirsty industries, there has been a parallel calamity among the fish and wildlife of the region.

Trouble in Animal Kingdom

As flowers and plants wither, streams and ponds shrink and marshlands and bays turn saltier, it is clear that the torrid temperatures and lack of rain have created disastrous conditions for some species and adverse times for most others.

The parched Southeast has had a spate of afternoon thunderstorms recently, and heavy rains fell in some parts of the region again Thursday, to bring more temporary relief. Climatologists say it may be years, however, before the region’s record rainfall deficit is made up. Meanwhile, the fauna and flora continue to suffer.

In Virginia and Maryland, for instance, marine biologists are worried about the threat to oyster beds posed by high salt levels in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Two deadly internal parasites--known by the shortened names MSX and Dermo--thrive when the salt content of water rises and spread rapidly through the oyster population.

“For reasons still unexplained, MSX and Dermo became prevalent in the mid-1950s and devastated the oyster fisheries in the lower Delaware and Chesapeake bays,” said Roger Newell, a University of Maryland marine biologist. “Now, the last remaining areas of substantial oyster populations, in the sanctuaries of the upper bays, are being threatened because of the increased salinity.”

Oyster beds along the Gulf Coast of Alabama face a similar threat. There, the danger comes chiefly from snail-like predators, known as oyster drills, which thrive in salty water. The drills bore through the oysters’ shells and attack the mollusks inside, spoiling them for human consumption.

Gulf Coast shrimp also are being affected. While the dry weather has enlarged the saline spots in marshlands and rivers where shrimp grow, it also has stunted the growth of the plankton upon which young shrimp feed. “One thing kind of cancels the other out,” said Ray Nelson, president of Bon Secour fish producers.

Fish Hatcheries Hurt

In northern Georgia, trout in hatcheries that depend on cold water from mountain streams to raise the fish are imperiled because of the reduced stream flows and higher water temperatures.

At the Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery, for example, the flow of water from the two creeks has dwindled from about 5,000 gallons a minute to about 2,000 gallons a minute, while the water temperatures hover dangerously near 70 degrees, the point beyond which trout suffer.

“We have had to move all the big fish out as quickly as we could,” said Don Pfitzer, an Atlanta-based spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the hatchery. “The lower volume of water flow and the increased temperatures are putting stress on the fish, increasing parasite problems and diseases. Some days, we were losing 4,000 to 5,000 fish a day among the fingerlings--the small fish anywhere from two to four inches long.”

Fish in their natural habitats also are suffering. Several fish kills have been reported in North Carolina, particularly in the central and eastern parts of the state.

Foragers in Gardens

All across the Southeast, rabbits, mice, chipmunks and squirrels have been driven to foraging closer to people’s homes as the plants and flowers upon which they feed wilt and wither.

“They have discovered that there’s not a lot out there that’s juicy,” said Doug Weeks, education director of the Chattahoochee Nature Center near Atlanta. “The plumpest, tenderest plants are the ones in people’s yards and gardens . . . .”

One suburban Atlanta woman has been putting out lettuce leaves for the wild rabbits that had been munching her prized marigolds. “It’s cheaper to feed them lettuce than to buy new marigolds,” she said.

Honey bees are not having a sweet summer, either. The plants they depend upon for nectar are drying up and losing their blooms, forcing the bees to raid hummingbird feeders or make honey out of the sticky, sweet secretions from aphids, the small bugs that attack rose bushes and other plants.

As the year progresses, finding food may become even more difficult for woodland creatures. The acorns and hickory nuts that many animals depend upon to get them through the winter have been dropping as early as six weeks ahead of season.

Winter Feed Scarce

“While it’s not had a noticeable impact on wildlife yet,” said Jim Howard of the National Parks Service’s regional office in Atlanta, “our resource managers can speculate that, come the fall months, these animals will be wondering, ‘Where is our food? Who in the heck got into our stuff?’ ”

Wild animals in captivity may also be affected. At the city zoo in Knoxville, Tenn., for example, officials say their suppliers may not have enough hay to last through next spring. The zoo has only 3,000 of the 7,000 bales it needs to feed the elephants, giraffes and other animals through next May.

“That leaves us looking for another 4,000 bales of hay, and it’s not easy to find right now,” said zoo associate director Randy Wolfe.

Some troubles in the animal kingdom are a blessing to humans. In Virginia Beach, Va., the mosquito population has been cut in half because the drought has helped to dry up the stagnant pools and ditches where they breed.

On the other hand, fishermen at Lake Seminole--a sprawling, shallow impoundment on the Georgia-Florida-Alabama border--are nervous over the growing number of alligators that have moved into the lake as nearby ponds have dried up. “If they’d take all of them out of here, it’d be two feet lower,” said veteran angler Eugene Moore, 80, of Whigham.

Alligators on the Move

At the Boy Scout camp in Hinesville, Ga., just north of Darien, three alligators moved into a pond about the size of a football field. A pond that size “doesn’t have enough food to keep three alligators satisfied,” said Bill Corbett, an environmentalist with the Hinesville Health Department.

“They probably stayed in the pond because of the drought instead of moving to a better feeding ground, so they ate cats and dogs to make up for it.”