After ruling out a virus, the province now believes the die-off of hundreds of kokanee salmon in Okanagan Lake this year was caused by lake temperatures.
“Biologists can’t be 100 per cent certain about the cause of the recent die off, however it is strongly suspected this is a recurring natural phenomenon caused by summer time temperature inversions in the lake,” wrote a Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations spokesperson in a statement to media.
The ministry said health tests were done on dozens of fish which “came back negative for disease or evidence of IHNv, a virus that has affected kokanee salmon in Kootenay Lake.”
The province is also downplaying the long term impact of the most recent die-off.
Read More: What’s killing fish in Okanagan Lake?
“The 2016 die-off is not severe enough to have a significant impact on Okanagan Lake’s overall kokanee population,” wrote a ministry spokesperson.
“Kokanee stocks in the lake have enjoyed a strong recovery over the past several years.”
In July, the sight of masses of dead fish alarmed West Kelowna resident Scott Thresher.
“Of course you immediately think that the lake has been poised or something but then we realized that it was just this particular species of fish and nothing else was floating at the top,” Thresher said last month.
The province says this type of die-off has happened before and the most recent incident was “relatively small.”
– with files from Neetu Garcha and Blaine Gaffney
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