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Jennifer Meunier and her family hoped to find a good place to fish when they pulled off the highway near Doaktown onto McKean Brook Road, but instead they found a pond covered in a bright red, quivering, bubbling, paint-like substance.
“It was really bright red kind of bubbly kind of quivering the closer that we got to it,” she said. “It was really really strange.”
Janice Lawrence, associate professor in biology at the the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton said it’s difficult to tell what the substance is without a closer look.
“But it does look very similar to blooms that we see of microscopic organisms. Blooms meaning abundances of high-population density of microscopic organisms that together form a very large discolouration and thick surface scum on water bodies.”
She said it’s likely algae or cyanobacteria. A combination of certain nutrients, climates conditions and temperatures can cause algae and cyanobacteria to grow, but the substance can also disappear overnight as the nutrients run out.
“There’s a good possibility there’s nothing dangerous associated with the population. However, there are some organisms in those groups … that can form blooms that have toxins associated with them.”
The Department of Environment and Local Government said it will be visiting the site to take a sample this week.
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CBC – Red, gelatinous mass baffles Moncton family fishing near Doaktown
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