The rain North Carolina may receive over the next couple of days won’t come close to solving the severe drought affecting the state.<\/p>\n
The impacts are showing up in many ways, including water restrictions, crop failures, and now dead fish.<\/p>\n
In his 50 years around Lake Wilson, Craig Blizzard said he has never seen conditions this bad.<\/p>\n
“I’ve seen it low many times, but I have never seen it this low,” he said.<\/p>\n
Blizzard shared photos on Facebook showing dead fish deposits along the lake, prompting concern and questions from community members.<\/p>\n
“Just pray for rain, is all I can say. It’s just a sad situation. We’re in desperate need of rain,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to North Carolina Wildlife officials, when bodies of water begin to dry up, wildlife is affected, especially fish, which depend on deeper, cooler water to survive.<\/p>\n
NC Fisheries Biologist David Belkoski explained the challenges fish face as water levels continue to drop.<\/p>\n
“As the water gets warmer over the summer, water levels get lower. Fish get stressed because of low oxygen levels in the water,” he said.<\/p>\n
Belkoski said these conditions typically occur later in the summer or early fall, but this year’s severe drought has accelerated the process.<\/p>\n
He said that there is little that can be done beyond hoping for significant rainfall.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to be a stressful summer for all wildlife. It’s going to be stressful for us too. I think anything that needs water is going to be a little bit more stressed out, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For longtime anglers like Blizzard, the sight is especially difficult.<\/p>\n
“Fishing is my passion. I’ve done it for all my life, and it’s something, as being a fisherman, you just hate to see. It’s really heartbreaking,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lake Wilson is not the city’s primary drinking water source, so the municipal water supply is not currently affected. A city spokesperson said staff members are closely monitoring conditions and are prepared to implement restrictions if necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rain North Carolina may receive over the next couple of days won’t come close to solving the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":874836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[6772,746,159,5313,67,132,68,527,65223],"class_list":["post-874835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-drought","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-severe-weather","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-water","tag-wilson-county"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116768660989042024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}