LAKE COUNTY >> From all indications the recent carp die-off at Clear Lake has subsided. Most of the fishermen and boaters report seeing fewer dead carp on the beaches and floating in the lake. Mark Miller of the county’s Water Resources Department said that earlier this week he made a trip around the lake in the county’s air boat saw very few fresh dead fish.
In the first week of June, people began reporting scores of dead carp. A fishing guide counted 25 near Nice in one day. At Library Park in Lakeport, authorities picked up 30 dead carp from the shoreline in one morning.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife (DWF) took samples of the dead carp and sent them to their laboratory in Sacramento but haven’t received the results of the tests. The biologists suspect the carp die-off was the result of the Koi Herpes Virus and it is estimated that several thousand carp died as a result of contracting the disease. The disease only effects members of the carp family and not other species of fish in the lake. It cannot be passed on to humans.
The last major die-off was in 2008 when tens of thousands of carp died.
