"We've Never Had Fish Kills On The Cowichan River" - Dieoff Across Species On Vancouver Island

[hatrack]

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In a summer of global catastrophes for Canada, climate change has been felt across this vast country — from Cowichan Valley on the Pacific Coast to Halifax on the Atlantic, from the long border with the United States to the remotest towns above the Arctic Circle. But if the world has been consumed with the fires raging across Canada’s forests, turned into tinderboxes from the effects of climate change, the plight of the river has hit close to home in Cowichan Valley.

A biologist, swimming in a wet suit for miles downriver from where the juvenile fish, or fry, had been found, discovered hundreds more dead inside pools at the bottom of the river. Further downstream, past eerily “barren zones” with no fish at all, he found dozens of dead adults inside larger, deeper pools — foot-long rainbow trout and even bigger brown ones. “It was the first time not just in my career, but the first time in my life, that I had seen anything like that,” said the biologist, Tim Kulchyski, 50, who said he “basically grew up in the river” as a member of Cowichan Tribes, where he now works as a natural resources expert.

The mass death of the cold-water fish has occurred during another summer of extreme drought and heat on Vancouver Island, a region known for its temperate climate. Wildfires cut off access to some of the island’s western communities for more than two weeks during the tourist season, leading to losses estimated by a local chamber of commerce at around $30 million.

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“There’s a lot of talk about climate change, but living here, it’s undeniable,’’ said Tom Rutherford, a salmon biologist and executive director of the Cowichan Watershed Board. “We’ve never had a significant fish kill like this in the Cowichan River, or at least in living memory,’’ Mr. Rutherford said. “The event is still under investigation. But if there was more water in the river, if it wasn’t this hot, the impacts would have been less. Salmon are cold-water species. Things may not have in the past tipped them over the edge. Now they do.’’

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/world/canada/canada-wildfires-river-salmon.html

[yonder]

1. These reports keep adding up into a terrifying trend.

Its like the first 20 minutes of a disaster movie, except now we are living it.