1000s of Dead Carp in Nevada

From:

[link to hisz.rsoe.hu]


Time to fire-up another summer season. But if you're headed in for a swim or taking your family out for a float on Lake Mohave, you won't be alone. "The dead fish. Yeah, that's sad." said beach-goer Vanessa D'Acquisto. "A lot of dead carp in the water... and when I went up to get a beach yesterday, more dead carp," said boater Doug Mead. "We have reports right now of thousands," said Andrew Munoz of the National Park Service.


In the grips of a still undiagnosed disease, the Lake's usually hardy carp schools are dying-off. "Right now we have no reason to believe that the causes for the carp death pose a threat to humans. But we recommend you not handle the fish," Munoz said. No problem there. Still it can make a day at the beach a bit dicey. Around here the carp have been an attraction for years. But here are so many dying at this point the locals have a joke: they call it "carp flu."


Munoz says so far there's no evidence the carp killer has spread to other species. And they are watching closely to make sure the illness isn't spreading upriver to Lake Mead. Health risks aside, park rangers say there's one other thing to be worried about this holiday weekend: where there are a lot of dead fish.. well... it totally smells like carp. "I don't know... some kind of like, weird toothpaste smell, right? It's nasty," said D'Acquisto.


Rangers say there's plenty of room to move around the fish, and they still expect this weekend to be a great one at the lake, but be prepared for a creepy confrontation with the circle of life. "Is there any concern that this is the sign of a large biological problem in the eco-system?" we asked. "Right now it's too early to tell," said Munoz Scientist have take tissue samples from the dead fish, and should know what's going on next week.)