Dead fish wash up at Shoal Lake

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/04/2019 (2344 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hundreds of fish carcasses have washed up on the shores of Shoal Lake, unpleasantly decorating the coastline of the small Manitoba town.

Photos posted to social media show piles of fish lying along the shore and in the water.

The assumption is that the dead fish are a result of low water levels and lack of oxygen for the fish, Municipality of Yellowhead Mayor Merv Starzyk said.

They’re working to raise the water levels, he said but it hasn’t been an easy task.

“We’ve had to jump through a lot of hoops with the department of sustainable development. We had to get an environmental assessment done on the lake (and) we still don’t have a final report on that, but meanwhile the damage is getting done.”

After a harsh winter, large fish die-offs are a relatively common occurrence in shallow or highly-productive lakes in the province, a government spokesperson said in emailed correspondence. A harsh winter can cause thick ice and snow over lakes, leading to there being not enough dissolved oxygen concentrations in the water for some fish to survive.

When a large die-off of fish occurs, it’s called “winterkill.” This is most noticeable to people in the spring, the spokesperson said, when large numbers of the dead fish can pile up along shorelines.

A spokesperson with the provincial government said nobody was available to speak about the situation on Wednesday.

Winterkill can have dramatic effects on fish populations in Manitoba lakes, said Christophe LeMoine, assistant professor in the department of biology at Brandon University.

“Although some fish species like carps can be quite resistant to low oxygen conditions, many freshwater species may not tolerate these conditions for very long and therefore are most affected,” LeMoine said.

Shallow and murky lakes and lakes with plenty of vegetation may have worse winterkills during long winters in the province, he said.

Earlier this month, Pelican Lake experienced a similar situation, when photographs of thousands of dead fish along the shoreline circulated on social media.

The chair of the lake’s health committee told The Sun at the time that there was nothing to be concerned about, and the minnows washing up on shore only represented a fraction of a per cent of the total population in the lake.

Still, it can be unpleasant for those who live near the lake.

In Shoal Lake, the fish are already starting to leave a stench in the air, said Connor Smith, who lives in the area.

“It’s a rotten fish smell,” Smith said. “Wait till the heat starts hitting them, that will probably start making it smell really bad. Even around town, we get a lot of west winds, so it will push it from the lake into town.”

There wasn’t one specific kind of fish that he saw. They were all different, he said, adding that animals have already starting picking them apart.

Some community members are concerned when the fish will be cleaned up, but it would be an endless task, Starzyk said.

“I figured if we had 100 volunteers working for one day, sure we’d clean up 1,000 feet of shoreline maybe, but then we’d come back the next day the wind, the water motion would probably have a bunch of them back there again.”

The conservation officer has suggested letting nature take its course, he said.

“They’ll decompose very quickly. The seagulls, the pelicans they’ll clean up a bunch.”

» mverge@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @Melverge5