During a conversation with Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira, I made a snarky comment about the lake’s most recent features — belly up carp and blue-green algae.
I have a bad habit, I’ll admit, of voicing tongue-in-cheek headlines. She knows this and just shook her head.
But we both recognized what is likely to follow, here in the real world.
The carp die-off results from an occasional virus, at least according to initial repor … well, not reports, actually, but assumptions. You see, in 2008 several hundred thousand Clear Lake carp floated to the surface and washed ashore, turning Library Park’s waterfront into a fishy version of Omaha beach. At the time California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife examined tissue samples and determined Koi Herpes to be the cause.
I’m told the virus spreads rapidly. Close proximity to an ailing fish is just about all it takes. Apparently this vicious bug affects only carp. Other fish and humans are safe — though I would probably hesitate to follow the old kiss-the-fish-before-tossing-it-back tradition.
In order to practice safe carp, authorities ask that people bury the carcasses on high ground or — more reasonably, unless raccoons frequent your neighborhood — scoop them into a plastic bag and toss them in the garbage.
Messy, but no big deal.
Of course, we’ve already heard more sinister theories. The most plausible of these involve blue-green algae choking off oxygen, leading to the death of hundreds of carp — maybe a thousand — over the weekend. Yet our outdoors writer, Terry Knight, points out that measurements of oxygen in the water so far fall within acceptable levels. Besides, carp are the only fish bobbing on the surface.
Unless you believe people who insist the distinct fish are instead the threatened Clear Lake hitch. In this office we heard of several calls regarding a mass hitch die-off. But Knight tells me he has seen only carp. And anglers who frequent the waters complain only of dead carp.
Likely a few other culprits will emerge over the next few days. Until the experts clarify the situation, which will occur within the next few days, it’s probably best (if you are relatively land locked — couch locked, rather — like me) to go along with prevailing assumptions.
There was a time when I spent quite a bit of time fishing the carp-infested streams of Illinois. This was decades ago, and my dad instructed me to toss any of the carp we hauled in onto the bank. He hoped to at least the river flowing through our plot of what he considered a junk fish.
Fast forward to Christmas in the Czech Republic, where dining on plates of carp and boiled potatoes remains a holiday tradition. Every December, vendors appeared on street corners and cobblestoned squares with tubs of live carp. Residents would eagerly pick their fish and cart them home, keeping them alive for a few days in their bath tubs.
Well, the sensible ones asked for the vendor to take care of business. But some people did go without bathing for the sake of a fresh carp.
Anyway, that’s the extent of my history with the big fish: chum, delicacy and mass not quite extinction. As a result, it’s one of the few fish I could still recognize, even floating back and forth on the shoreline.
We should all wait for test results, but it seems unlikely the current carp die-off indicates a lake in trouble. Blue-green algae, on the other hand, is a problem we must solve.
