Dead fish discovery
Enhancement co-ordinator finds hundreds in Little Miminegash River while preparing to evaluate health of stream
Dead fish, numbering in the hundreds, were discovered Monday morning in the Little Miminegash River in Roseville, and investigators are trying to determine why they died.
Danny Murphy, watershed co-ordinator for Ros evil le Mi mine gash Watersheds Inc ., discovered dead fish upstream from Roseville Pond. At the time, Murphy and a co-worker were visiting the stream to prepare for an electrofishing exercise. Electrofishing is used to determine the health and population of fish in a section of a stream.
“It looks like they’re all dead,” he said in describing what investigators subsequently found while walking the stream.
When he first went down to the small river, he saw that a beaver dam had started to form at the culvert where the river crosses under Route 14, the Shore Road, before it empties into the pond.
He noticed several dead fish caught up in the dam.
Pointing to a structure about 150 metres away, Murphy said he walked upstream about that distance and counted 100 dead fish.
That’s as far as he went before returning home around 8:30 a.m. and calling the fish kill hotline.
Investigators arrived on the scene a couple of hours later and started collecting water, sediment, plant samples and dead fish for analysis.
Wade MacKinnon, manager of investigation and enforcement with Public Safety and Justice, was on scene along with officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada and P.E.I. Community Lands and Environment.
MacKinnon said there was still much investigative work to do to determine a cause.
Murphy estimated the Little Miminegash Brook is only about five kilometres long, but he pointed out the meandering stream covers considerably more distance than that. As officials walked the stream, Murphy followed along on a four-wheeler and said they were finding dead fish in similar concentrations to what he found initially.
“It looks like every species has been killed, right from sticklebacks to trout,” he said when asked to describe the extent of the damage.
Some of the trout measured 22 inches, and some were found dragged up onto the bank possibly by raccoons. An eel and a gaspereau were also found dead.
Murphy said some tree-planting had been carried out near the stream last Tuesday, but the last time any enhancement work was done in the stream was about three weeks ago.
The watershed experienced heavy rainfall last Thursday.
The watershed co-ordinator said much enhancement work has been carried out in the stream over the past nine years, including the removal of beaver dams, installing brush mats, digging silt traps, planting trees, working with farmers to improve land use and working with Department of Transportation to reduce silt runoff from Blanchard Road. He said they had been seeing a resurgence in trout population as a result.
Murphy said he was told it will likely take at least three years for the stream to recover from the fish kill. Re-stocking might be necessary.
“Traditionally, we haven’t had fish kills because we have so much forest around our streams,” he said, noting that changed Monday.