The Western Regional Fisheries Board said yesterday that "substantial" numbers of dead fish had been found in Derryclare Lake, Connemara.
The incident has been traced to a hatchery at Derryclare which produces salmon smolts on a commercial basis. The board has taken samples which, it said, confirmed the link with the hatchery, run by Murpet Fish, a Norwegian-owned company.
The chairman of the Save Our Sea Trout campaign, Dr Graham Shaw, said the dead fish were washed into the lake when a hatchery sump was being cleaned, exposing wild fish in the system to potential disease.
