Elijah nearly perished in the desert before God saved his life by providing food and water that refreshed him. Hundreds of thousands of fish in the Midwest are perishing in drought- and heat-stricken areas where water is scarce and hardly refreshing—some 40,000 sturgeon died last week in Iowa when water temperatures reached 97 degrees. One fishery biologist said he’d never seen anything like it.

Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead fish of various species in the Lower Platte River, including endangered ones. Biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of fish.

"It's something I've never seen in my career, and I've been here for more than 17 years," said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "I think what we're mainly dealing with here are the extremely low flows and this unparalleled heat."

The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in history. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared more than half of the nation's counties—nearly 1,600 in 32 states—natural disaster areas. More than 3,000 heat records were broken over the last month.

Source: An article by Grant Schulte for the Associated Press