What, you thought that the mysterious death of multitudes of animals was limited to Louisiana and Sweden? Think again! Millions of fish have turned up dead along the shores and in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay recently. What could possibly cause such mass destruction? Pollution? Man’s destruction of the fish’s natural habitat? Some kind of precursor to the inevitable 2012 end times? Nope — it’s just cold water.

That’s right: millions of fish, killed by water. The AP reports that the fish, which have been floating to the surface of the Bay between the Bay Bridge and Tangier Sound, are victims of “cold-water stress,” after temperatures in the Bay dropped as low as 36 degrees in December.

But this kind of natural fish massacre has happened before. Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus tells the Baltimore Sun that the destruction will have to continue for some time if the Bay is to mark a new record for this type of kill-off — 15 million Bay fish died in 1976 after a similar cold snap. Mother Nature: she’s a wild and dangerous one, that’s for sure.