When Jim Kerner arrived at Park Lake to fish, he sure found fish — scattered dead by the hundred across the lake’s shore.
Wednesday evening, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks got word of a huge Arctic grayling fish kill, or mass death, at Park Lake near Clancy.
There were so many that Kerner thought someone had dumped their fishing haul until he saw even more dead on the other side of the lake, the Great Falls man said.
Arctic grayling carcasses line the banks of Park Lake south of Helena last week.
“I counted 28, and I only walked about 30 feet,” Kerner said.
FWP water pollution biologist Trevor Selch, who was sent to the popular fishing spot in the days that followed, estimated anywhere from 500-800 fish may have died.
He counted 200 fish alone when he walked a quarter of the bank, and between the birds picking off the remains, the final toll may have even broken 1,000.
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Early water testing yielded normal numbers for just about everything they typically look at, like temperature and oxygen, he said. A fish kill at this time of year is very unusual.
“This hasn’t happened in a few decades,” Selch said.
But the otherwise normal numbers have yielded FWP biologists a clue, echoing back to a similar fish kill around 20 years ago, FWP fish biologist Ron Spoon said Monday.
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