Willow Creek is a peaceful sanctuary most of the time.
Usually, a great place to come and breathe in some fresh air, an unmistakable stench has crept in.
Dead Fish.
In 24 hours, Greenways Land Trust staff and volunteers watched the spot transform from a lively culvert full of happy fish fry to a morbid graveyard.
On Monday, they were doing stream-keeping work to help care for all the water’s inhabitants. When they returned on Tuesday, there were no fish to care for.
“We took water samples, and fish samples. Most of the mortalities were coho, but we saw trout, stickleback and sculpins. Estimated numbers are more than 2,000,” said Executive Director Katie Lavoie in an email to Black Press Media.
The exact cause of the mass die-off is yet to be determined, but they suspect a toxic contaminant was somehow introduced to the waters.
“Whatever goes in the storm drains goes into the creeks (and then the oceans),” Lavoie said.
Volunteers worked quickly with City of Campbell River staff, Dogwood Operations, and Mainstream Biological Consulting to remedy the situation as best they could.
“We put up stop nets to make sure that fish outside of the contamination area stayed outside, and Mainstream used electrofishing to move any living fry into the non-contaminated zone.”
Despite the mass casualties, their efforts likely helped save hundreds of other fish from meeting the same end.
Lavoie praised the community’s efforts, reminding everyone to educate themselves to stop incidents like these from occurring in the first place.
Campbell River has a spill protocol available on the city’s website.
It has instructions for steps to take whether you accidentally cause or witness a spill.
Once the cause of this die-off is determined, this article will be updated.
