Thank you Pat, for that informative response. I don't often get as far south as Utah Lake, so I don't see any of the seining boats. Are the Loys still fishing? From your PDF, I see this in an article by the Provo Daily Herald in 2017:
“We’ve known all along, we can’t just walk away,” Mills said. “We’re starting to see vegetation come back, and we want to keep removing for a couple more years still, but at
that point we can’t just say, ‘OK, we’re done.' “Because it would probably only take two or three years before the carp population would rebound and come back.”For maintenance of the carp population, they could keep removing them, though Mills said research is currently underway at Utah State University looking into other methods. For instance, there are certain types of fish that could be introduced to the lake that are really good at eating carp eggs. Either way, though, the shift to a maintenance strategy is several years down the road.
“This year will be telling, because when the lake comes up a lot in the year, that’s typically when the carp do really well,” Mills said. “So our monitoring this year and also next year will be really important.”
Which sort of maintenance efforts are being employed? in the 3-4 years since the completion of the now-expired removal, have there been any studies on recovery of the carp population through natural recruitment? Does your experience at the lake support the idea that the carp population has suffered a setback resulting in greater gamefish population?
“We’ve known all along, we can’t just walk away,” Mills said. “We’re starting to see vegetation come back, and we want to keep removing for a couple more years still, but at
that point we can’t just say, ‘OK, we’re done.' “Because it would probably only take two or three years before the carp population would rebound and come back.”For maintenance of the carp population, they could keep removing them, though Mills said research is currently underway at Utah State University looking into other methods. For instance, there are certain types of fish that could be introduced to the lake that are really good at eating carp eggs. Either way, though, the shift to a maintenance strategy is several years down the road.
“This year will be telling, because when the lake comes up a lot in the year, that’s typically when the carp do really well,” Mills said. “So our monitoring this year and also next year will be really important.”
Which sort of maintenance efforts are being employed? in the 3-4 years since the completion of the now-expired removal, have there been any studies on recovery of the carp population through natural recruitment? Does your experience at the lake support the idea that the carp population has suffered a setback resulting in greater gamefish population?