{"id":66449,"date":"2025-07-03T14:40:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T13:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=66449"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T13:40:10","slug":"heatwave-causing-fish-deaths-at-stover-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/heatwave-causing-fish-deaths-at-stover-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Heatwave causing fish deaths at Stover Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The prolonged spell of hot weather is being blamed for the death of over 100 fish at Stover Lake.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rangers at Stover Country Park, near Newton Abbot, have reported that fish in the lake are struggling in the current heatwave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stover Lake is a shallow man-made lake where the water heats up relatively quickly. As water temperatures increase, dissolved oxygen levels go down, and this has caused some of the fish to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff are working with the Environment Agency, who are monitoring the situation, and an oxygenator is due to be installed, although this won\u2019t cover the whole lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors to Stover are being asked to take extra care not to disturb the fish in the lake during the hot spell.<\/p>\n\n\n

\r\n\t
\r\n

Councillor Jacqi Hodgson, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Biodiversity, said: <\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly sad that there have been some dead fish in the lake, but it\u2019s an unfortunate consequence of the weather and staff are removing them as they find them. We need some significant rain to help the situation as the rain droplets force oxygen into the lake as they land, and will also cause the lake to flow again, keeping it cooler.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re preparing to install an oxygenator this won\u2019t cover the whole lake. If anyone has contacts for local large-scale lake oxygenators then we would appreciate hearing from you.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a positive note, the tiny, young fish and smaller roach and rudd are managing by congregating at the lake edges. So to help during this time, we would ask everyone to please limit disturbance around the lake and water courses so the fish aren\u2019t using more energy than is absolutely necessary. Please do not paddle in the water and please keep dogs on short leads and do not allow dogs to go in the lake, even to drink at the edges. Dog drinking water is available at the Visitor Centre. We thank you for your support during this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately this is an example of the impact of climate change on our wildlife and nature which is likely to get worse if we cannot limit and reduce our carbon emissions heating the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t\"Councillor\r\n
\r\n Councillor Jacqi Hodgson, Leader of the Green and Independent Group and Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Bio-diversity<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n\n

There have been fish deaths at Stover Lake during periods of drought in the past, but the lake is experiencing a brown algal bloom this year which is further depleting oxygen levels at night and exacerbating the situation. Algal blooms in lakes are primarily caused by excessive nutrients, particularly nitrogen, combined with warm, still weather. The nutrients are washed into the feeder streams which then end up in the lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u2019s silt dredging has helped create deeper, cooler areas which are being used as refuges by some of the fish. It is hoped the water lilies will spread to their former extent now the silt has been removed which will help shade the water in future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone can assist with sourcing large-scale lake oxygenators please contact stovercountrypark-mailbox@devon.gov.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":66450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[645,86,87],"class_list":["post-66449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment-and-climate-change","tag-cllr-jacqi-hodgson","tag-environment-2","tag-stover-country-park"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":66450,"title":"Copy of hero image for news website (59)","alt":"Stover Lake","description":"","caption":"","url":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59.jpg","width":1200,"height":675,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-400x270.jpg","thumbnail_width":400,"thumbnail_height":270,"medium":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-600x338.jpg","medium_width":600,"medium_height":338,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-768x432.jpg","medium_large_width":768,"medium_large_height":432,"large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-800x450.jpg","large_width":800,"large_height":450,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59.jpg","1536x1536_width":1200,"1536x1536_height":675,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59.jpg","2048x2048_width":1200,"2048x2048_height":675,"thumbnail_featured":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-770x450.jpg","thumbnail_featured_width":770,"thumbnail_featured_height":450,"thumbnail_sidebar":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-200x135.jpg","thumbnail_sidebar_width":200,"thumbnail_sidebar_height":135,"banner-block":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-440x440.jpg","banner-block_width":440,"banner-block_height":440,"small-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-640x360.jpg","small-banner_width":640,"small-banner_height":360,"medium-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-1024x576.jpg","medium-banner_width":1024,"medium-banner_height":576,"small-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-640x480.jpg","small-thumb_width":640,"small-thumb_height":480,"medium-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-320x240.jpg","medium-thumb_width":320,"medium-thumb_height":240,"large-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-420x315.jpg","large-thumb_width":420,"large-thumb_height":315,"slideshow-preview":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-300x200.jpg","slideshow-preview_width":300,"slideshow-preview_height":200,"slideshow":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-hero-image-for-news-website-59-800x533.jpg","slideshow_width":800,"slideshow_height":533}},"category_priority":25,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2027-07-03 13:16:21","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66453,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66449\/revisions\/66453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}