Marine scientist asks for help tracking dead eels found in Shubie canal, Dartmouth lakes

After finding numerous dead eels floating in Dartmouth lakes, a marine scientist is asking for help tracking and logging them online. 

In recent weeks, Dr. Christine Ward-Paige began hearing reports of multiple dead American eels in the Shubie Canal. 

“A few of my neighbours kept telling me that they saw a bunch of dead eels. And then last Friday, one of them said, ‘Christine, I’m going to take you,’” Ward-Paige said in an interview on the shoreline of Lake Banook near Paddlers Cove.

“She drove me to Shubie Canal with the kids to show me where they had found a bunch of dead eels. She’d said six or seven. As soon as we got down there, we counted 36 in a very short time.”

While onsite, Ward-Paige said many passersby told her they’d seen many dead eels. She was told “they’re everywhere.” 

Eels are an indicator of lake health, and beyond the dead eels, Ward-Paige there was also a permeating stench. 

“I care about eels. They’re super important ecologically. They’re an endangered species and threatened locally, endangered globally. And they are a culturally important species for Indigenous communities,” she said. 

“And we close the fishery for this because they’re endangered, highly poached, and targeted. Now there’s all these dead females that are egg producing, females that are all dead in this one lake.” 

Dead eels in several Dartmouth lakes since mid-August

The Dartmouth resident owns and operates a software science consulting company, eOceans. The company’s website notes it is unique in its aim to track “the biological, social, and anthropogenic dimensions of the global ocean, its seas, and largest lakes from the perspective of people.”

During her Shubie Canal trip, Ward-Paige took photos of the dead eels and measured their lengths to determine whether they were adults or juveniles. She then used the eOceans app, logging each eel’s location along with the date and time. 

When she posted the information on her company’s Facebook page, people began sharing their own stories of dead eels. They also sent her links to local community Facebook groups where the issue was being discussed.

It didn’t take long to discover that dead eels weren’t just showing up along the Shubie Canal. They were found elsewhere too, including in lakes Banook, Fletchers, Miller, MicMac, and Charles. Ward-Paige also learned that people had been seeing the dead eels since mid-August.

During a trip to Lake Banook on Tuesday night, she found another 36 dead eels.

“There’s been blue green algae…We’ve had very hot water because of marine heat waves. And so is it a response to marine heatwaves? They recently mowed this (Banook) lake. And so the seagrass that’s decaying could be gobbling up some of the oxygen and making it hard for eels,” Ward-Paige said, looking down at 14 dead eels floating near the shoreline.

“The thing about these eels is, yes. Many of them are missing their heads, the biggest ones. But the smaller ones are all intact. They seem more fresh. It seems like it’s not just one event. It’s ongoing. There are varying degrees of decomposition, so it’s not just one event that caused it.”

Citizen science

In response to the increasing number of reports of dead eels being shared with her, earlier this week Ward-Paige added several Dartmouth lakes into the eOceans app.

Geotagged observations can now be logged in real time from numerous local lakes. More information can be found here. 

“It’s one thing to send me or eOceans pictures. But it’s better if they geotag and log it in the eOceans app. Because then it’s got a time stamp and geo location,” she explained. “If somebody is just sending me a message, I don’t know if it’s from years ago, I don’t know if it’s from Maine, or somewhere else.”

When logged at the location using a cell phone, Ward-Paige said she or someone else can show up to verify the find. She described the app as a community tool that eOceans can also use to map and track data over time. 

“So then if it happens again next year, we can say, ‘OK, well, this happened last year. This is an ongoing August event,’” she said.

Ward-Paige stressed that while she operates eOceans, her role in this citizen science endeavour has nothing to do with her company and everything to do with her love of local lakes and a desire to know if what’s happening is more widespread. 

“I think it’s a mystery currently,” she said. “And does it have to do with something that has happened to just this lake? Or is it more widespread? Is it up the Shubenacadie Canal waterway?”

DFO investigating

While many who reached out to her about dead eels tried contacting various government officials about the eels, she said no one seemed to know what might be happening.

Posting on his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, Coun. Tony Mancini said he’d asked provincial Environment and Climate Change Minister Timothy Halman about the dead eels in lakes Banook and Micmac. 

Mancini then shared the response he received:

Hi Tony, here is an update on the eels:

We responded to complaints and conducted site inspections. No land based activities indicated any releases that would cause this impact on eels. 

DFO is now looking into the matter as this is their mandate and trying to determine what is causing this impact on eels. It may be natural but work is still on going. 

We are currently trying to get an update from DFO and a good contact to make referrals to.

When we have this information we will pass it on but at this time there is nothing further role for Nova Scotia Environment. DFO has the required expertise to respond.

‘Don’t ever remember anything like this’

In an interview Thursday night, Deputy Mayor Sam Austin, the councillor for Dartmouth Centre, said late last week, HRM staff informed him that DFO was investigating.

While there’s been widespread speculation about what might be behind the dead eels, Austin said there’s just no way to know until they hear back from DFO.

“We have no idea, I’d say, at this stage. At least I don’t, or anyone at HRM. Maybe at some DFO lab they might. But they haven’t shared anything yet as to what’s happened,” Austin said.

“It is the time of year when natural fish kills happen, because you get oxygen depleted water. But I certainly don’t ever remember anything like this or this widespread. It’d be nice to know what’s happened.”

Ward-Paige said gathering crowdsourced data through the app, especially over time, could help paint a clearer picture of lake health not just now, but over time.

“The citizens are the people who are out on the lake every day. They walk past it. They smell the difference, they can see a difference. And they’re the early pulse detectors of what’s happening in their lakes,” she said.

“Let’s identify what the problem is, because we love this lake. We love all of these lakes. We’re the city of lakes in Dartmouth. So let’s fix it.”