'Thousands' affected by fish kill

Officials have finished their count of last month's fish kills on the Dunk and Tryon Rivers, and estimate thousands of fish were affected.

Gerald MacDougall, manager of P.E.I.'s fish and wildlife section, told CBC News on Tuesday that fisheries officers picked up 550 fish after the kills were discovered July 22 and 23, but that represents only a fraction of what was killed.

"We do estimate there's thousands of fish that would have been affected," said MacDougall.

"Dead fish were found over 12 kilometres of the stream, and the large size of the fish picked up would also indicate that there were more fish killed. Almost all were over five centimetres, so we're missing the smaller fish, which could represent over two-thirds of the population."

Of the fish recovered, 263 were brook trout, 140 were rainbow trout, and 85 were salmon. Officials will return to the two rivers Wednesday to find out if there are any fish left alive.

"What we do is we put a net in two sections: we sort off block off a section of the river, is what we do, and we use a little shocker," said MacDougall.

"It stuns the fish, and the fish float and it gives us a chance to grab the fish and measure them, and give us an idea what's in the river. We've done this before in the river when the river was healthy so we have a pretty good idea of what should be there."

It will likely be weeks before officials know what killed the fish, but agricultural chemicals washed into the rivers by heavy rains July 20 are the prime suspect.