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The phenomenon was still occurring midday Thursday, with about 200 fish carcasses scattered around the lake and a dozen fish still pumping their gills near the shoreline.
“What’s unusual about, I would say, is the timing,” said Steve Maricle, senior fish biologist with the fish and wildlife branch.
The lake is a kilometre from the nearest road, making it unlikely that a foreign contaminant or nutrient killed the fish.
“I believe what almost certainly happened was that it experienced a summer kill, which usually isn’t happening so late in the year.”
Winterkill is a more typical phenomenon and Interior lakes have been hit with more of it recently. Maricle said it’s the first report of summer kill in Deep Lake, a well-used, walk-in lake stocked with rainbow and Eastern brook trout on alternating years.
Situated in Lac du Bois Grasslands Protected Area, the lake is about the size of a football field and has no surface water source, only groundwater. Together with a lack of wind within the lake’s sheltered bowl, this can lower oxygen levels in the water.
Last winter Deep Lake underwent a winter kill of its Eastern brook stock before it was restocked with rainbows according to schedule.
“From my knowledge, a Deep Lake summer kill is fairly rare.”
Maricle suspects there fish kill may be the result of warmer than seasonal temperatures and their effect on phytoplankton in the lake. When there is a mass die-off of algae, the decay can consume large amounts of dissolved oxygen from the water.
Typically, summer kills are caused by warm temperatures and explosive algae growth, causing spikes in dissolved oxygen. The oxygen plummets at night and the die-offs occur just before dawn when levels are lowest.
“We’re seeing a lot of different things with climate change,” Maricle said. “Things aren’t what they used to be.”
Typically in mid-fall temperatures don’t climb in the mid and upper teens.
He wasn’t planning to send a crew up to the lake on Friday afternoon due to other priorities.
“We still don’t like to see it,” he added. “If Deep Lake continues, year after year, is there any value to stocking it?”
The branch works with the B.C. Freshwater Fisheries Society in maintaining the fishery in the lake, one popular with people of all ages, especially kids.
“It’s a really good kids lake. It’s kind of out of the way and doesn’t get a lot of pressure.”
Courtesy of newskamloops.com
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