Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 14 august 2017

Reward offered to catch Nevada lake invasive fish dumper

nomic activity to this part tor’s motives.
By SCOTT SONNER of the state,” Lyngar said. “But we’ve had people
Associated Press “Years ago, people came put pike in waterways be-
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Ne- from all over the world to fore because they want to
vada game wardens who fish that lake.” catch pike.
spend most of their time At its peak in 2004, the They are a good fighting
hunting down big-game lake logged 35,000 “angler fish,” he said.
poachers are focusing on user days” and generated Authorities also cannot rule
a serious threat to nature in more than $2 million for out a distant possibility that
a lake: An invasive fish spe- the local economy as the the fish found some natural
cies that eats all the other fourth-most visited fishery way to get into the lake.
fish prized by anglers and in the state behind Lake “Anything is possible, but
then turns cannibalistic. Mead, Lake Mohave and the evidence indicates
The Nevada Department the Truckee River, which very strongly that is not the
of Wildlife is offering a flows out of Lake Tahoe case,” Lyngar said. “We
$10,000 reward to help nab through downtown Reno. believe very strongly they
the culprit who apparently That fell to about 2,000 user were introduced by some-
dumped Northern pike in days and $73,000 by 2013 one on purpose.”
Comins Lake, a popular as the non-native pike took Lyngar said state biologists
fishing spot surrounded by over. are doing everything they
mountains near Great Ba- The reward money was can to stop the pike before
sin National Park. donated by several sports- they get a toehold and
By all accounts, Comins men’s groups, including they’ve seen no evidence
Lake was well on its way Nevada Bighorns Unlimited of any survivors since they
to recovery after the state and the Operation Game netted the last four during
restocked the fishery with Thief Citizens Board. If offi- an extensive electrofishing
largemouth bass, brown cials catch a suspect, the effort last week.
and rainbow trout in 2015. person would face criminal A biologist “told me he
But the invading North- penalties. doesn’t mind if one is left,”
ern Pike were discovered This Aug. 2015 photo provided by the Nevada Department of Lyngar did not want to Lyngar said. “But if there are
again last month by a fish- Wildlife shows state fisheries biologist Kim Tisdale holding one speculate on the perpetra- two, we’re in trouble.”q
erman who caught one of the Northern pike removed from Comins Lake in eastern Ne-
and called state wildlife vada during an effort to eradicate the invasive predators.
officials. Five more have Associated Press
been confirmed since “We intend to find who did “They eat all the trout we
then.
“This malicious and illegal it,” he said. put in there,” Edwin Lyngar,
Northern pike may not spokesman for the state
act seriously endangers our
effort to restore this impor- sound as scary as piranhas wildlife agency, said in an
or the Asian swamp eel — interview Friday. “Then they
tant fishery,” said Jon Sjo-
berg, chief of fisheries for two of the other half-dozen eat all the other fish they
can find, and then they
fish that Nevada law sin-
the Nevada Department
of Wildlife. “The people ille- gles out as invasive, injuri- start to eat each other.”
ous aquatic species.
The remote eastern Ne-
gally introducing pike are
destroying a fishery, not But with its long, needle- vada lake near Utah bor-
sharp teeth, the voracious der covers about two-thirds
creating a new one.”
Chief Game Warden Tyler predator that sometimes of a square mile (1.7 square
grows longer than 4 feet kilometers) and draws nu-
Turnipseed announced the
reward this week. (1.2 meters) can wipe out merous anglers.
an entire fishery. “It brings tremendous eco-