Unless you’re standing at the very edge of P.E.I.’s Trout River, near Gunn’s Bridge, seeing much below the surface is probably out of the question.
The water looks like it’s been mixed with a massive jug of milk. It smells funky too — kind of like rotten eggs — and little fish are swimming as close as they can to the top.
These are all strong indicators that this estuary is what’s called anoxic.
“It is when there is low oxygen in the water,” said Kyle Knysh, a surface water biologist with P.E.I.’s Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action.
“When there’s low oxygen, fish and invertebrates and mostly anything in the water that likes breathing oxygen doesn’t do very well. So they avoid an area — or, if they’re trapped, [they] can die.”
The P.E.I. government has been monitoring anoxic events like this for decades. For the past few years, numbers have fluctuated between 20 and 28 cases annually.
There have been 10 so far in 2024. Knysh said that’s on par with previous trends, but with temperatures reaching new heights on the Island, he expects to see an increase in the years to come.
“There’s likely going to be more reports of this because of that,” he said.
“It is concerning to aquatic life.”
