Since 1996, agriculturalists have increasingly become familiar with Gulf of Mexico hypoxia and the potential impacts that this phenomena may have on Midwestern agriculture. Between 1993 and 1999, the zone of seasonally low oxygen (< 2 mg/L) in the northern Gulf of Mexico has been estimated to be larger than 4,000 square miles. In 1999, it was 8,000 square miles, but in the summer of 2000 dropped to 1700 square miles (see Fig. 1). The hypoxic zone is a result of complicated interactions involving excessive nutrients, primarily nitrogen, carried to the Gulf by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers; physical changes in the basin, such as channelization and loss of natural wetlands and vegetation along the banks as well as wetland conversions throughout the basin; and the stratification in the waters of the northern Gulf caused by the interaction of fresh river water and the saltwater of the Gulf. In the near shore Gulf, excessive algal growth results in a decrease in dissolved oxygen in the bottom water, and the corresponding loss of aquatic habitat. Mobile organisms leave the hypoxic zone and those that cannot leave, die or are weakened depending on how low the oxygen level gets and for how long. In the Gulf, fish, shrimp, crabs, zooplankton, and other important fish prey are significantly less abundant in bottom waters in areas that experience bottom waters hypoxia.