ANOTHER Carp Die-Off??

[Photoz]

Last week I watched a fairly lengthy segment of CTV news concerning the carp die-off in the Kawarthas. There were in-depth interviews with boaters, civic officials AND MNR officials. Although they identified viral hemorrhagic septicemia as a possibility, the fact that it killed ONLY carp, it was thought to be another disease which was common to goldfish, Japanese koi & carp, all members of the same family. (I don't recall the name of it.) Although the Ministry didn't come out & say this was knowingly introduced to Lake Scugog, from where it spread, they DID say it could have easily started because some idiot unknowingly dumped their sick pet goldfish in the lake, where it quickly spread the disease throughout the Kawarthas. NOW, I just read on another board of dozens (if not hundreds) of carp are floating in Lake Simcoe & Cook Bay, in quite a few locations! Perhaps somebody has AGAIN dumped some 'sick goldfish' into Lake Simcoe? I may be paranoid, but it just seems like too much of a coincidence that this would happen again, in another area? Perhaps some carp hater may think they've just found a simple solution to the fish they think should be eradicated completely? Unfortunately there seem to be some reports of pike & catfish dying & floating too? Perhaps WHATEVER was killing the carp may have evolved to hit other fish too? Anybody else on this board have any firsthand knowledge of the new die-off?

Edited June 27, 2008 by Photoz

[Marko]

This is the first that i am hearing of it.

Its awful to have this happen, i still don't believe that the first die off was an accident.

I`ll bet my right hand someone or some institution was behind it but just covered it up with some lame excuse.

 

I hope its not happening for the second time.

[Kerry]

I think last year it had moved as far as canal lake in the Kawartha's.It's quite possible it just hasn't completely moved thru the whole trent system.Maybe Simcoe is just another in a chain of lakes to be affected.

Kerry

[modny]

maybe i'm old school but people always told me to kill carp.

 

i've never caught one though

[Sinker]

I haven't seen any ill effects in the kawartha's so far from last years carp die off.....

 

I still see lots of carp. And no drop in any other fish species. As a matter of fact, I'd say the fish this season are much healthier than any passed season. The carp need to be thinned out a little.....its good for the ecosystem. There is no way they will all be eradicated......there is just too many of them. It seemed to me like it only effected the adults anyways.....

 

Sinker

[Photoz]

I'm curious . . . . (no offence intended) but how do you identify an 'ADULT' carp??

[Rich]

My guess is that an adult is considerably large...

 

I didn't see any carp during my kawartha musky trip. Usually at that time of year, they're spawning everywhere. We didn't see a single one. Now, my thought was that it was just too early due to the late spring. The water was freezing after all.

 

But - they spawned here in April. Just found it odd.

[Slyatv]

Hey Photoz ! !

Yah Lots of Carp dieing in the Pefferlaw river ..... LOTS....... hundreds of lots there everywhere from deep water to the shallow rapids up by the Railway ! ! !

I was under the impression that an experiment on 'controlling' the mosquito was introduced to the Pefferlaw Swamps area .... not sure just how far it was actually used .. BUT , Have you been to Pefferlaw lately .... Nary a squito ! ! .. Honestly . the Outdoors was OFF LIMITS . now it welcomes a patio in the evenings! Two simple events that have nothing to do with each other ... MAYBE ! MAYBE NOT. !

 

 

Sly

Edited June 27, 2008 by Slyatv

[Rich]

Well there was certainly no shortage of mosquitoes in the kawartha area last year or this year!

[ccmtcanada]

My guess is that an adult is considerably large...

 

I didn't see any carp during my kawartha musky trip. Usually at that time of year, they're spawning everywhere. We didn't see a single one. Now, my thought was that it was just too early due to the late spring. The water was freezing after all.

 

But - they spawned here in April. Just found it odd.

 

The spawn hasn't even really started in my area and there was no carp die off in my neck of the woods (Lake O trib mouth). You see spotty spawning activity, but nothing like it was in May of last year. The waters here are still only in the 60s.

[Rage]

In the last two weeks a number of carp have been spotted floating dead in the Trent System between Lakefield and Peterborough. A report had at least 5 dead at Lock 25, Sawyers Creek, the first set of locks below Lakefield, another 18 to 21 dead in the area down from Trent University to the Lift Lock in Peterborough. There has also been a report of dead carp in Rice Lake, but that could be related to the Bow Hunting as a lot of it is done there. As i sat and fished in Little Lake in Peterborough tonight one dead carcas floated by. These sighting are only hearsay reports and should be taken as such....as some people tend to exagerate. One thing i have noticed is that the number of British Carp Anglers that usually grace this area around this time of year are down.....and the ones that have came and left the area were quite dissapointed, the daily catch numbers are away down compared to last year...i have also found that it varies drastically from day to day....there is no consistancy to it. With all the rain we have been having and the fact that the Dams along the Trent System are open with flowing water....actually too much water at times the Carp fishing should be excellent, and that is not the case.

 

tightlines

 

Cheers for now

 

Rodpody...

[kemper]

Saw 4-5 dead carp at a river mouth lake O today...

[Rich]

What I'm having trouble understanding is how the infection to these carp is travelling UPSTREAM, rather than down into Lake Ontario. It started in the lower kawarthas and moved up from what I understand... ? It obviously can't be a water-born disease. Perhaps it has something more to do with birds?

[Sinker]

It moved downstream in the kawartha's last year. Started in scugog....then sturg, to the tri lakes.....etc.....

 

I see carp every time I'm at the lake still. My marina has quite a few, but I will say less than previous years. Still more than enough IMO.

 

Sinker

[Burning Babies]

Likely it is some bacteria, parasite, or virus in combination with common spring stresses like rapidly changing water temperature and spawning. The idea that a natural resource agency is introducing viruses or the like to fisheries is absurd, however.

[Sinker]

Likely it is some bacteria, parasite, or virus in combination with common spring stresses like rapidly changing water temperature and spawning. The idea that a natural resource agency is introducing viruses or the like to fisheries is absurd, however.

 

 

Agreed!

 

I'd agree with it being introduced from pet fish that were released to the lake. Then spread during the spawn. I have an uncle who had an impressive koi pond, last spring they all died too......same thing as the carp die off.....he lost about $20,000 worth of fish, and 15 years of work raising them.

 

 

Sinker

[fishindevil]

I saw a dead carp floating in whitby harbor this afternoon !!. .and i did hear of dead carp in simcoe,and a few being in rice lake,but that was about it,maybe whatever it was that killed them has not been eradicated from the lakes maybe the virus still lives or wasnt killed off,over the winter ????. we might have the same dieoff as we had last year again?? i hope not

[Tacklebuster]

As I understand it, they're an invasive species to Simcoe anyhow, and some have said that that areas such as Cooks Bay has much fewer weeds since the introduction of carp, which can't be good for the overall fishery either. Nothing against carp, however if this is the case, then the fewer the better.

Edited June 27, 2008 by Tackle Buster

[mikeymikey]

whatever it is... maybe it can be used to kill those asian carps.

[Photoz]

Although I don't suspect ANY Government Ministry of introducing a carp killing virus, when I see remarks like this:

 

"As I understand it, they're an invasive species to Simcoe anyhow, and some have said that that areas such as Cooks Bay has much fewer weeds since the introduction of carp, which can't be good for the overall fishery either. Nothing against carp, however if this is the case, then the fewer the better."

 

Unless you were born well before late 1880's (about the time the carp were introduced to Ontario by the Government) you would not likely be familiar with what the 'pre-carp' days were like, ('GOOGLE' 'The History Of Carp In North America' if you want to know how they got here.

 

Or another similar remark: "maybe i'm old school but people always told me to kill carp. i've never caught one though

 

No reasoning, just a belief with no basis handed down from Gawd knows where? With this type of thinking, likely a high school kid with basic biology knowledge could easily place a few infected fish where they thought it might erradicate what they (WRONGLY) believe to be 'PUBLIC ENEMY #1, and do the whole world a favour. ABSURD? No more absurd than the 'kill 'em all' attitude displayed by a very small fishing minority! Carp fishing brings in more tourist dollars in the Kawarthas & area than ALL other types of fishing combined. This may, or may not have been introduced by some narrow-minded individual, or individuals, thinking they were doing nature a big favour. ABSURD or FAR-FETCHED . . . . . I don't think so! And you might have noticed, in the past 4 or 5 years, threads about carp fishing, on this board have gone from myself & a handful of others, to a LARGE percentage of the overall fishing threads . . . maybe as many as 50% or more? What does this tell you?

[Zamboni]

Was 'Ground Zero'-Scugog identified as the private area on south side of 7A causeway? Heard that rumour from a few locals when my son played Port Perry in hockey last winter. I was curious as the same thing was being mentioned at Goerski's launch by locals last summer-think I posted then but no one commented. Hope nobody is playing amateur biologist-scary!

[blaque]

A local lake here in western NY (chautauqua) had a huge carp die off in 05' , read on

 

 

20,000 dead carp: something fishy

 

 

Few things grab your nose's attention on a hot summer afternoon down by the creek quicker than the putrid odor of a dead carp.

 

But imagine 20,000 dead carp.

 

That is what the good folks on western New York's famous Chautauqua Lake are contending with right now - in the height of summer vacation season with the big Fourth of July holiday weekend looming.

 

"There is some odor, but they're trying to keep ahead of the game," explained Russ Biss, natural resources supervisor for the Allegany, N.Y., office of the state department of environmental conservation. "The Chautauqua Lake Association has been very active out there, picking up fish."

 

The rafts of dead carp are being buried in trenches next to the local landfill. "They're the big fish - 10, 15, 20 pounds up to 30 inches long," said Biss. "They're probably stressed from spawning."

 

Add in the sustained heat wave of air temperatures in the 90s, plus an outbreak of koi herpes virus in the lake's carp stock, and there you have it: Piles of dead fish.

 

No significant carp dieoffs have been noted in Lake Erie so far this year, said Jeff Tyson, supervisor of the Sandusky-based Lake Erie Fisheries Research Station of the Ohio Division of Wildlife. But he added that noteworthy numbers died a couple of summers ago. An exact cause could not be determined at the time.

 

Tyson noted that significant dieoffs of freshwater drum, or sheepshead, have occurred this summer, but those deaths likely are linked to post-spawn stress. Stress seems to cause a sizable drum dieoff about every third summer, the biologist said.

 

Koi, an Asian species commonly called "goldfish," are an aquacultural color variation of common carp. They vary in color from reddish-orange to orange and white with colored patches. They are popular in residential fish ponds and other ornamental ponds.

 

New York's Biss said that Chautauqua Lake, 17 miles long and covering some 13,000 acres, had a smaller oubreak with dying carp last summer. But a few thousand dead fish then have blossomed to an estimated 20,000 so far this summer. Again most of the outbreak is in the lake's relatively shallow southern basin, where it empties into the Chadakoin River. Water temperatures there this week are in the mid 70s.

 

Fish recovery crews also have found some dead muskellunge in the lake, but Biss said their deaths are unreleated to the koi herpes outbreak. He noted that some muskies die every summer from spawning stress.

 

The supervisor said that the koi virus obviously has been introduced to the lake system, but he stopped short of accusing someone of dumping unwanted, infected koi into the lake. It is possible, he explained, that the virus was water-borne, entering the lake in runoff from a pond where infected koi were stocked.

 

In any case, biologists so far have been unable to trace the actual path of the outbreak. But the veterinary college at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., confirmed the identity of the outbreak from samples of dead fish.

 

So far, Biss said, the damage control being done by the lake association, in terms of scooping up and carting away the dead carp, has limited the impact on tourism and vacationing. But some inquiries are coming in nonetheless.

 

"We were expecting tourism concerns to occur but it doesn't look like that is happening," said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau. He said that some beaches may have some odor problems while crews continue to catch up with the dead fish, but health authorities have assured the public that the lake waters are safe for swimming, boating and other water activities, Nixon added.

 

"This is a new experience for us," said Biss, noting that the hot weather, possibly a contributing factor, is expected to continue through mid week.

[blaque]

more interesting info on the Chautauqua die-off.

 

http://fli.hws.edu/pdf/carp06.pdf

[Beans]

As expected with the die-off of thousands of carp last year there are not as many being caught at our favourite ''swims'' this year in the Kawarthas and those that are seem to be smaller...haven't seen any dead ones this year but will have a closer look for some later today while I try my luck...

[Reef Runner]

I think last year it had moved as far as canal lake in the Kawartha's.It's quite possible it just hasn't completely moved thru the whole trent system.Maybe Simcoe is just another in a chain of lakes to be affected.

Kerry

 

 

Last year the carp die off never reached Canal Lake, well at least in the magnitude as on other Kawartha Lakes, I can assure all. I believe I only saw one floating carp all last season. There were more dead crappies/sunfish than anything else washing up late spring last year however. My garden is looking real good as a result and I've been having no problem in catching them this year. No significant die-off of any species there yet, however, usually this time of year we see the carp playin on the surface and in the shallows. I havent seen any this year so far

 

reefrunner