Minister says fish deaths due to extreme cold

The Nova Scotia government says extreme cold weather is to blame for the deaths of salmon, mackerel and trout at three aquaculture sites in the province.

Fisheries minister Keith Colwell says it’s still not known how many fish have died, but the dead fish have been removed and disposed of.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever know that number,” he said Thursday. “It’s actually — the company would only have that information, we don’t have that information, because we don’t have any idea how may they harvested, how many were in the net at the time.”

A spokesperson at Cooke Aquaculture — the New Brunswick company that runs the three sites — told News 95.7 they don’t know the exact number of fish that died either. Spokesperson Nell Halse said the number doesn’t matter; what matters is that they reported the losses to the government. The company said it would not be releasing those numbers when they do know.

The government says in two cases, net pens were damaged and dead fish were released, but the nets have since been repaired and there is no evidence that live fish escaped.

The province has said coastal waters typically remain above freezing during the winter, but every five to seven years cold air can cause shallow ocean water to drop below -0.7 C, the temperature at which fish blood freezes.

Colwell says the rare act of nature is unfortunate and the department will continue to monitor the situation.

“It’s not something we expect to repeat itself in the future and there’s really nothing the company could’ve done — or we could’ve done — to prevent this,” he said.

“It’s really just a weather condition.”

The three sites are at Shelburne Harbour, Jordan Bay and Port Wade.