Thirteen recorded fish kills in County Roscommon
Inland Fisheries officers assess the death toll in a significant fish kill.
There were 13 recorded fish kills in the county between 1988 and 2020.
According to a recently published report by Inland Fisheries Ireland on fish kills between 1969-2022, County Roscommon and neighbouring County Westmeath both had the lowest number of fish kill incidents during the period.
The IFI has details of 12 fish kills in County Roscommon and the impacted rivers include the Cross River in 2018, which resulted in salmonid fish, i.e. salmon and trout, being killed. Lough Key, the Jiggy River, the Lung River, Forbes Lough in 2000, Feorish River in 2000, Island River in 2011, and the Shannon in 2001 and 2016 were also affected.
The earliest recorded fish kill was in 1988 at Lough Key, with the cause of the kill unknown. There was a further fish kill at the lake in 1995 with eutrophication being listed as the cause. This is a process where nutrients accumulate in water, resulting in the increased growth of microorganisms that may deplete the water of oxygen.
There were two recorded fish kills in the Lung River in 1994 and 1995, with the cause listed as agriculture and industrial respectively. In 2010, the Jiggy saw a fish kill of coarse and other fish, with the cause listed as municipal. A 2020 incident in the county, which saw salmonid fish killed, has not been assigned a name and the cause is unknown.
Nationally, the most common known cause of fish deaths was agriculture, followed by eutrophication, industrial, municipal, mining, construction, and other activities.
"The newly-released fish kill report is focused on the causes of fish kills and environmental factors, and therefore did not include information about prosecutions,” said a spokesperson for IFI.
"Separately, in relation to a 2011 fish kill incident, an individual in County Roscommon pleaded guilty under section 171 of the Fisheries Act and was fined €500 at Castlerea District Court on February 25th, 2012.
"There was a fish kill incident in 2010 related to a municipal source. There was no case associated with this 2010 fish kill."
