It wouldn't be so alarming if it were an isolated event, but right after that came reports from the other side of the country. The Pacific off Oregon has experienced a die-off of birds, declining fisheries, and wildly fluctuating conditions in the past few months, and has set the stage for another "dead zone," according to experts at Oregon State University.

As Science Daily adds, this is the third year in the past four that has demonstrated significantly unusual ocean events -- a period unlike any on record.

The events have not all been the same. This year's oceanic behavior is particularly bizarre, and there is no proof for what is causing it.

From California have come accounts of strange and massive migrations of sea creatures -- not just one species, but dozens of different kinds grouped together and so thick for miles that at times swimmers had trouble getting into the water.

Meanwhile, in the few places on the British Columbia where sockeye salmon fishing is allowed, boats came back empty or near-empty last summer, as the annual sockeye run failed to materialize.

"On the Fraser River, 11 million salmon were predicted to return, but the peak last weekend saw about 100,000 fish," said a report from there.

According to scientists, sixty percent of the coral surrounding the eastern U.S. is dying (portending more fish kills), and in the past few months scientists have raised alarm about the plummeting number of sharks.

"Dozens of biologists believe the seas have reached a tipping point, with scores of species of ocean-dwelling fish, birds, and mammals edging towards extinction," noted The Washington Post recently. "In the past 300 years, researchers have documented the global extinction of just 21 marine species — and 16 of those extinctions occurred since 1972. Since the 1700s, another 112 species have died out in particular regions, and that trend, too, has accelerated since the mid-1960s: Nearly two dozen shark species are on the brink of disappearing, according to the World Conservation Union."

Huge dead groupers. Fish with tumors. Dead sea turtles. Scientists estimate that only nine percent of ocean fish are not currently under biological stress. Nature is clearly telling us something.

Is it like in Scripture? "The fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will become foul, and the Egyptians will find difficulty in drinking water from the Nile," warned God in Exodus 7:18.

In New England, the shellfish industry has taken a big hit and cod are nearly gone. Fishermen often come back to the shores of Nova Scotia empty-handed.