Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
Last August I was paddling in the marsh when I saw what looked like a little green hand waving just above the water’s surface. It looked bizarre and otherworldly and like some creature was doing a casual, gentle dance below the waterline, submerged in cloudy green water shot through with sunlight.
I imagined a quirky turtle or aquatic house elf until I paddled closer and recognized the green hand as a large fin. I assumed it was attached to a big fish, but nothing was visible through the murky water. Paddling on, I saw more fins suspended in this way, gently fluttering.
On the same day I saw little flurries of sediment, like a whirlpool jet, in other places of the marsh. And sometimes I’d be paddling and there’d be a sudden movement beneath the canoe, and I’d feel weight against the blade of my paddle.
Were these things all connected? Was I imagining any of this? Or was a meaty, muscled fish lurking below the murky wetland waters, ramming into my paddle and stirring up sediment. After months in the marsh with no such fin sightings, their sudden appearance only added to their mystique. But I was pleased that this was another instance in which I confidently noticed a change in the season, perhaps a phenomenon to late August.
Scott and I were paddling with our pal Marie who is nine years old. We headed to an area of the marsh I seldom explored: the southwest corner, an area near the university that isn’t navigable by boat. The reeds were thick and previously I hadn’t bothered to get close to them.
We heard some erratic splashing and thrashing in the distance. Scott steered us through an opening in the reeds, closer and closer to the ruckus. The cattails closed in on us, softening the sounds. The violent splashing continued. We moved closer and closer. Then the splashing stopped. It was quiet; just the brush of a cattail against the exterior of the boat.
Then a violent splash exploded from the water directly next to us. It was like a horror movie and Marie screamed. I might have closed my eyes.
I think one of the big fish was next to us or under us and we’d disturbed it, and it jumped or pushed against my paddle. Marie was understandably freaked out, and my heart was beating hard. We didn’t even see the fish. We backed out of the cattails quickly and I tried to lighten the mood for Marie which led to me photographing the setting sky with an exuberance I did not know I possessed for clouds.
I described what had happened to my friend Jackson who identified the mystery fin and marsh monster as carp. I’d heard about the local carp problem but this was my first close encounter with the invasive fish. Common Carp were introduced to Lake Ontario in 1870s, and by the 1930’s had become the dominant species in the marsh . According to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the conservation body that protects the marsh: “Carp start to harm the environment when they are 50kg of carp for every hectare (50kg/ha). In the early 1990s, there was an average carp density of 800 kg/ha throughout the RBG 300 ha of marshlands.”
Carp love the marsh because the shallow waters are perfect for spawning. Over the years their population exploded and they damaged the delicate balance of the ecosystem. They root around for food on the bottom of the marsh and stir up sediment, degrading the water quality and blocking sunlight from reaching aquatic plants, which inhibits plant growth. When spawning their activity crushes native plants and small organisms.
Overall its a good news story thanks to the work of the RBG. Among other wetland restoration projects, they operate the Fishway, a barrier that keeps the large carp out of the marsh, while allowing the natural flow of water and native fish. Carp leave the marsh to spend winter in the deeper waters of the bay, and are prevented from reentry when they try to return in the spring. So the carp population gets smaller each year.
Since it’s installation in 1997, the density of carp has improved from 800 kg/ha to 23 kg/ha in 2019. Among the many positive outcomes, native fish have increased six fold, and wild rice now grows in thirty locations, after having vanished from the marsh.
This August, when the carp wave their fins above the water’s surface I’ll recognize them. But I won’t be following their far-off splashing into narrow spaces in the reeds!
Thanks for reading Dry Spell. I’d love to know what you think; please feel free to leave a comment or reply to this email!
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