Half a million trout escaped from their Ocean Trout Farms Inc. aquaculture cages off Coffin Island last fall during post tropical storm, Noel.

“It’s very difficult to tell if there is going to be any long term impact,” says David Dagley, Secretary of the Queens County Fish and Game Association.

He says rainbow trout have not established themselves in previous escapes along the Atlantic coast but have sought out a higher quality pH water than what is usually seen this close to shore but most escapes have not been of this magnitude.

“It only takes two fish to spawn,” he says.

Although the aquaculture farm has told the association the escaped fish are sterile, the association wants to be informed if any of the rainbow trout caught have any roe.

Dagley hopes the largest impact for the area is a greater likelihood of an angler catching the raised fish.

When the escape first happened it was believed many of the fish would not survive.

“It’s not so much survival,” explains Dagley. “If the food is there and the habitat is there fish will survive. A lot of those fish were thrashed around in the storm and the rough water and beating against the pens and against each other caused a lot of mortalities.”

He says the unknown is how many survived the beating and natural predators.

One of the association’s biggest worries is the current impact on the salmon.

Darrell Tingley, President of the Medway River Salmon Association shares the same concerns as Dagley.

“For those that are fishing it’s a bonus year,” says Tingley. “Our concern is one of their sources of food are fish eggs and we are trying to repopulate the salmon.”

“There’s always a concern about the salmon,” Dagley states adding that the released rainbow trout are not helping matters.

For the past four years the associations have been working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to counteract the depleting salmon population due to an increased pH level caused by acid rain.

The stock was down to an all time low of five per cent of conservation requirements and the groups have been working hard live gene banking the salmon on the Medway River to preserve the stocks.

Unfortunately Rainbow trout along with other trout feed on the salmon eggs and smaller fry.

“If it’s smaller and if it looks like food they will eat it,” says Dagley. “It’s just the type of world it is down there.”

Fish have been caught by anglers from the Mersey all the way to the Sackville River in Halifax.

Tingley says they won’t know the full impact until the salmon eggs hatch and the young appear in a couple of weeks.

“If the fish eggs were ravaged by the rainbow trout…that is the unknown and that is our worry.”