Fish kill investigated in P.E.I.

P.E.I. environment officials are investigating a kill of what may be thousands of fish in the Montrose River on the western end of the Island.

Rosanne MacFarlane, freshwater fisheries biologist for the province, told CBC News on Wednesday a section of the stream just under two kilometres in length was affected, on the east branch of the Montrose River upstream from Marchbank Pond. The river runs into the Kildare River, which runs into the Gulf of St. Lawrence south of Tignish.

The kill was reported by the local watershed management group Tuesday, but could be related to Sunday's heavy rains.

"The fish are starting to decompose. They've been dead for a couple of days at least, and so it's getting harder to pick them up," MacFarlane said.

In the past, heavy rains on P.E.I. have caused run-off from agricultural land into streams, leading to fish kills. MacFarlane said that possibility is being investigated, but it is too early to name the cause.

"We would just be speculating at this point," she said. "This is an active investigation."

More than 40 millimetres of rain fell in some parts of West Prince on Sunday.

MacFarlane said officials followed a trail of dead fish to a point of concern on Tuesday.

"In any fish kill investigation, you follow the dead fish to a point where you see live fish again, and you consider that to be a possible point of entry for something that may have killed the fish," she said.

Samples of fish, water, foliage and sediment were taken at that point for further tests.