Exceptional drought kills spawning fish in the Kvarken

Dead fish lying at the bottom of a dry stream have been found at least in the Sundom area of Vaasa.

Many familiar spawning grounds in the Kvarken archipelago are now so dry that fish have even died on the riverbeds.

This has happened at least in the Vaasa Sundom, where a stream near Långsäret is so dry that up to two hundred dead roach were lying at the bottom.

The fish lying in the bottom of the stream among the cays have probably tried to rise from the sea to the familiar freshwater bays each year to spawn, but the drought has cut the journey short and the fish have starved to death on the way.

The effects of a low -snow winter are now visible in nature. Drought is practically affecting all major spawning streams in the area.

One of the most significant in Björköby’s Svedjehamn was in the same dry condition. However, there are no information on fish deaths.

A bigger and deadlier problem is failed spawning

– When the fish have to spawn into the colder sea, the harvest will surely get lean. In addition, there is a risk that in addition to these observed deaths, it is even spawning to dry land, and this is already being spoken of thousands of fish, says Juha Ojaharju

This way, total drought is rare, and the ditch does not remember having experienced before the same.

– In the past, there may have been little water, even about twenty cents, but never such a drought, Heinonen says.

According to Heinonen, the problem is now the same in many other similar places where drought has cut the fish connection from the salty bays to sweet claws.

Extreme weather phenomena have increased and Heinonen fears that the dry winter like this is one sign.

The biggest death trap for fish is acidification

The time of drought is the worst possible to reproduce fish. According to Juha Ojaharju, there is normally plenty of water at this time of year, but now at all.

However, the most significant and widest trap of the whole country is the oxygen depletion that is evil from time to time. It is a familiar problem, especially in low -water lakes and ponds. Last summer, the deaths of hundreds of fish were also marveled off Vaasa.

This case may have been due to more reasons, but at that time, one of the doubts was the low oxygen roof produced by low seawater and heat.