Word: oosten
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Last year's spring catch was zero. Last week, in streams around Michigan's Green Bay and Huron's Saginaw Bay, with smelts making belated spawning runs, men, women & children dipped up hundreds with their nets. Dr. John Van Oosten of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in charge of investigating the smelt situation, estimated that the normal Great Lakes smelt population (1942 catch: 5,000,000 lb. ) would be restored in four years...
...Oosten had served only to eliminate Possible reasons why the fish disappeared...
...disappear because of lack of oxygen in the water, weather (the smelts died in both warm and cold water) or air men's practice bombings in the Great Lakes (bombed fish have pulverized livers, of which there was no sign in the dead smelts). Dr. Van Oosten thinks that most likely the fish were killed by bacteria or viruses, but probably no one will ever know...
...incredible Great Lakes smelt situation was so described last week by Dr. John Van Oosten of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The vast smelt population of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron (where some 95% of U.S. fresh water smelts lived) had suddenly vanished. Two years ago fishermen took 5,000,000 Ib. of smelts there; last year, 1,000,000. Total catch this winter: 2 Ib. No one knew why the smelts had died...
Pathologists could find no clue to the disease; there seemed to be nothing wrong with the fish anatomically (a diseased fish usually shows ruptures or lesions). Said Dr. Van Oosten: "I am completely at a loss. The fish died regardless of sex, age, size, spawning condition or anything else." Last week Dr. Van Oosten hastened to Crystal Lake, where the smelts still seemed healthy, to fish and analyze further...