Provo River Delta Updates

[Therapist]

Now Kent!! Just because the pointed headed academics didn't have a clue, doesn't mean it would not work!! I read the papers that the project was based on. The first one was a paper based on several "saltwater species". There was one paper that was based on a project in fresh water going after carp, but it was a SMALL body of water and they were not trying to remove the number of carp that they were trying in Utah lake. I think that one of the issues on Utah Lake was there was only the Loy family doing the netting. They could only remove a limited number of carp in a year, which while significant, did not put enough of a dent in the population. While they removed large numbers, those removed were being replaced at an equal or faster rate. The study that started all of this was over fishing of menhaden, a species used for fish meal. There were hundreds of boats, removing millions of pounds per season, which did not allow the stocks to replenish. To be successful, there needed to be say a dozen or more boats on the lake removing thousands of pounds per day, all year long. Another problem they had was how to dispose of them. The ability to dispose of hundreds of thousands of pounds of carp never materialized. No one ever set up processing plant to convert to fish meal or whatever they were going to do with them. You can only dump so many on an open field !!

There has been a small reduction in the numbers of carp, a definite decrease in size, but overall, it was a bust. I believe the Loy's did their best, they just needed more help and a way to dispose of them, which Fish & Wildlife did not provide !!