January 24, 2007
Dead Cutthroat Trout, Mayflies in Byrne Creek
We found a dead cutthroat trout in the sediment pond above the spawning habitat in Burnaby's Byrne Creek today. It was about 30cm long, and when we opened it up, it was a male. No signs of external damage. There were plenty of other live trout around, so it wasn't killed by a toxin. I wonder if was an early spawner near the end of its life cycle. CORRECTION: Yumi believes that it was spiked by a heron -- there was a stab wound that I assumed I had inflicted when I scooped it out of the pond with a pike, but she thinks that the size and shape of the wound were smaller than what the pike would have done.
We also saw many mayfly nymphs in pools on the spillway between the sediment pond and the overflow pond, and also found one hatched, rather bedraggled looking mayfly floating on the surface of the sediment pond. We fished it out with a twig.
