This is bad news. When the fish start going belly up, there's something bad-wrong beneath the surface.

The Charlotte Business Journal's John Downey explains:

State officials say more than 7,000 striped bass have died in what is the largest reported fish kill at Lake Norman since Duke Energy started keeping records there more than 20 years ago.

But Ryan McRae with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission says the mass deaths, which began July 20, appear to be ending. More than 900 fish were found dead July 31 at the peak of the deaths. On Friday there were 127 dead fish found in the lake and on Saturday just 23.

The fish were not counted on Sunday and the Monday figures were unavailable when the Charlotte Business Journal talked to McRae.

“We think we are about at the end of it today,” he said.

Read the rest of this article here.

To sum up: It's hot. Because it's hot we're running our air conditioners more which ups our demand for electricity. In order to meet our demand, Duke Energy has to increase their supply. In order to do that, they have to pull more water from the lakes — created to cool the company's power plants, not for your pleasure. When it gets hot, like it is now, and the temperature of the water's surface rises, the electric company has to suck water from lower, colder areas of the lake — precisely where the fish have fled because hot water contains less oxygen which, like us, they need to survive.

But, who needs fish when we've got electricity? Right? It's all about us, the conquerors in the never ending struggle of Man vs. Nature. We win again! And, these are our spoils ... literally.

Here's an example of a fish kill, though this video is not from one of Charlotte's lakes: