SHORELINE MONITORING SCORECARD

Observation Dates: Thru 7/29/2021
% Zones Monitored: NA
Suspicious Blooms:  0
Confirmed Blooms:  0

Our 120+ volunteers are finishing up training and ready to start the season. Volunteers are monitoring the lake now, but the “official” monitoring period does not start until August 2nd. This year the official monitoring will run through October 10th, although many volunteers will continue searching and reporting until October 31st.

Pure Waters has updated its HAB website (senecalake.org/Blooms) for 2021. There is a real-time bloom scorecard that tabulates the number of reported blooms on the lake “today”, “this week”, and “last week”. The 2021 map is also up. As always, there is background information and links for more details.

In early July, Pure Waters received a few inquiries concerning dead fish in the water. Fish die off every year, but sometimes there are more than normal. Based on the information received, the situation seemed normal for Seneca Lake. However, Canandaigua Lake saw a bigger die off, so our partners, the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association (CLWA), contacted the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The next article was a summary the CLWA sent in a recent communication (reprinted with permission).

Fish Die Off Events

CLWA and the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Council fielded several calls from early to mid-June regarding increased numbers of dead fish found along shorelines. While we typically might see some die off in late spring brought on by factors such as post-spawning stress, rapidly increasing water temperatures, and ecological changes in the food web, this spring’s die off was more sustained. DEC Region 8 Fisheries staff was contacted to investigate and samples were collected and brought to Cornell Veterinary School for analysis.

DEC Region 8 Fisheries provided the following update:

DEC investigated recent reports of a fish die-off affecting rock bass, sunfish, smallmouth bass, and white sucker in Canandaigua Lake. Samples were obtained from impacted white sucker and smallmouth bass for analysis at the Cornell Veterinary School.

Results came back showing an infection of the bacteria Aeromonas. Aeromonas is commonly found in water and by themselves, are not a concern. DEC suspects that the warmwater fish in Canandaigua Lake became stressed from spawning, temperature swings, or some other stressor. This resulted in their immunity being lowered and allowed the bacteria to infect the fish. Aeromonas does not pose a threat to humans or pets utilizing Canandaigua Lake.

As always, people should not drink unfiltered lake water and obviously sick fish should be avoided. If stressed or dead fish are handled, people should wear gloves or wash their hands with soap and water after. With proper preparation, healthy fish are safe to eat. People should continue to report large numbers of dead fish to DEC at 585-226-5343 or fwfish8@dec.ny.gov.