Clean-up crews working on an oil spill near Sundre are beginning to recover animals soaked in oil, but officials say it will be awhile before the full impact on wildlife in the area is seen.
A pipe leaked last Thursday, sending thousands of barrels of crude directly into local waterways.
Plains Midstream Canada employees spent Sunday patrolling the spill area for injured or dead animals. A beaver was pulled from a pond covered in oil. Vets say the beaver almost died but has made it past the critical stage.
Alberta Environment can only confirm that one fish has died a a result of the spill.
Over the weekend, CTV News cameras captured dead fish near the spill area although it has not been confirmed at this point why they died.
Plains Midstream Canada are now looking to engage local groups to help them to find and treat affected wildlife.
A spokesperson says they are doing everything they can to reduce the impact on local animals.
Eleven teams have been dispatched to count the dead wildlife and save what they can.
"We have those teams on the ground and our teams from Environment and Sustainable Development as well, so those numbers will be coming to us in the next couple of days," said Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen.
Plans Midstream Canada did not comment on wildlife impact on Monday. An update is expected on Tuesday.
Company officials say despite the spill they were fortunate that the pipeline was not flowing at the time of the rupture and that the Red Deer River was running high, which they say pushed much of the oil into a reservoir making it easier to clean.
There's still no timeline for when things will be cleaned up. Officials can only estimate how much oil has leaked, which according to them is in the range of 1,000 – 3,000 barrels.
The company says the ruptured pipe has now been plugged and the oil spill has been contained.
With files from Sean Amato
