Fish have swim bladders to help them maintain neutral buoyancy in the water, otherwise they’d have to up and down in the water column. Gas is added or removed from the bladder as the fish changes depth.

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As best it can be figured it began happening quietly and slowly around 15 years ago. An insect called the emerald ash borer arrived from its native China in wood used to make crates. This borer is a beetle loves our ash trees. It flies from ash tree to ash tree laying its eggs in the bark. The eggs hatch and the larvae bore into the tree and block the flow of water and nutrients. The US experience with this pest is that every infected tree dies and once a tree is infected it dies within three years.

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