Credit River in peril

August 29, 2013 · 0 Comments

If you are a trout fisher and you fish the main branch of the Credit River, you probably have noticed there are hardly any brook trout left, where they used to be very plentiful.
Recent electrofishing surveys, conducted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Credit Valley Conservation upstream of Cataract, yielded very few brook trout where there was a strong population a few short years ago. Electrofishing is a method where the fish are temporarily stunned with an electric charge, measured, weighed and released unharmed. This is to assess the fish population, their health and the health of the ecosystem.
The dissolved oxygen levels in the Credit that are critical to all waterborn life, like the trout and other fishes, as well as aquatic insects that are an important part of the ecosystem and food for fishes and bird life, are crashing.
Any healthy trout stream has abundant dissolved oxygen due to the cool temperatures in the stream and the constant aeration of tumbling waters. Too many nutrients in the river and too much warming use up the dissolved oxygen.
Many people have made efforts over the years to protect and enhance the Credit River. I hope we can reverse this trend.
Steve Copeland,
Belfountain