'We're all kind of shocked': Massive fish die-off on the Cowichan River has many concerned

There is a mystery unfolding on the Cowichan River, discovered by people snorkelling last week near Skutz Falls.

“They noticed silver spots all over the bottom of the river,” said Parker Jefferson with he Cowichan Stewardship Roundtable.

Diving to the bottom, the pair discovered that those silver spots were actually a massive fish die-off.

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands of baby trout and salmon,” said Jefferson. “Some of them up to two years old.”

Jefferson says the die-off only happened along a small stretch of the river, and as to why it happened, that’s still unknown.

“We have checked the temperature and we have checked the dissolved oxygen in the river and they are both good,” said Jefferson.

Dozens of dead fish are now with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for toxicology testing. The results of those tests aren’t expected for a few weeks.

“The river is currently running lower than it did 50 years ago,” said Jim Deck, president of the Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society.

That group has been sounding the alarm for years as temperatures continue to rise, drying up the Cowichan River throughout the summer months.

The river is fed from Cowichan Lake through a weir.

The group wants to see the old weir, which was built in 1957, rebuilt, raising its height by 70 centimetres.

“To ensure that there’s a volume of water to maintain the aquatic life of the river, down to the estuary,” said Deck.

Seconding that motion is the Cowichan Tribes First Nation. They are calling on the federal and provincial government to act for the long term survival of the river’s salmon population.

With water levels currently low in the river and no substantial rain in the forecast, whatever happened along the river, killing off so many fry, has many concerned.

“There’s a lot of eyes on the river and a lot of people are concerned with what is going on,” said Jefferson. “We’re all kind of shocked by this and we’re hoping to find out exactly what happened by doing the analysis and that’s all we can do.”

“There doesn’t appear to be anything in the river now but maybe something was introduced into this area.”

It’s a mystery that many want answers to, in order to prevent it from happening again in the future.