Problem: Northern Pike...Solution: Poison the Lake and Kill ALL the Fish?

There is a safe and fun way to kill large amounts of fish. When I was younger, I lived in denver. Coors beer in Golden had a large beer release in to a small river that killed all the fish. It was the carbon dioxide bubbles, they suffocated, but at least they were a little buzzed at the time.

And how many fishermen would we lose from drowning by doing that?

The lake in question is in a very sparsly populated region of northern cal. The local town hasnt used the lake for drinking water in many years. Only 23 people live in the town. The chemical is rotenone(naturally occuring plant compound) it breaks down pretty quickly and is only mildly toxic to mammals. Its one of the active ingrediants in flea/tick dips.
Yes they have been trying to get the fish out of the lake for ten years with limited kills but it is NOT WORKING. They have found the the pike are spawning in the tributary streams and this time the effort is so much larger because they are doing the tributaries in order to get the fish.
The lake has been almost drained to try and concentrate the fish and isolate them.
Theren is no other way to get this done, and it has to be done. The pike has no natural predators here, there is nothing to control it, except maybe the white bass, another non native that is decimating natives and taking over lakes.
There are lakes in cali that had white bass introduced in the 80-90's and there are now nothing else in the lakes, nothing, no bluegill, no smallmouth, no largmouths no perch no trout only white bass.
All of the rivers that drain the whole length of the sierra nevada drain into the same system, the sacramento/san joaquin river delta. If the pike get out of Lake davis and into the Feather river, there will be no way to control them.
It might seem like overkill but almost the whole of california's fresh water fishery is at risk.
If the freaking knuckle heads hadn't intoduced the fish to this lake in the first place this wouldnt be a problem.

Originally posted by punkinworks
It might seem like overkill but almost the whole of california's fresh water fishery is at risk.
If the freaking knuckle heads hadn't intoduced the fish to this lake in the first place this wouldnt be a problem.

That would be like the US nuking the whole countries of Pakistan/Afghanistan to get rid of Bin Laden & Al-Qaeda,

But first they would have to nuke Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc.. etc..

Because they are the knuckleheads feeding these terrorists and the goal is to eliminate them.

Don't worry about the millions of innocents killed in the action because we can reseed them with new innocents once the AQ is handled.

Overkill is an understatement.

Why stop at almost draining the lake, why not completely drain the lake, save the fish native to the lake, and harvest the unwanted pike?

More work? , probably

More expensive?, probably

Safer? probably

And just think of the fish fry the volunteers would have after getting the pike out of the lake.


I know it is a moot point since it is already done,

and it is claimed to be safe,

My beef isn't why it was done,

My beef is how it was done.

You and the others who said these knuckleheads putting the pike in the lake are the problem, are 100% correct.

Once again I hope that they are correct in there risk assessment of poisoning that California Lake.

It is the only way.
The lake cant be drained completely. They get to much rainfall there is always water. They choose a time when the lake was at minimum pool and they are applying the rotenone to the feeder streams so that it will kill the pike fingerlings that are living in them. This is a last resort deal, they have tried other methods but there isnt anything left to do.
THIS FISH HAS TO BE STOPPED, if it gets it the mainstream of californias waterways it wont be very long before they spread to all of the other lakes and rivers.
From what I have read and learned from a friend,that is a proffesional fishing guide,there almost no other fish in the lake other than the pike, they have almost completly replaced the natural populations.

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Waah! What's with the overkill?

Question: Isn't the Department of Fish and Game supposed to protect wildlife to an extent?

They protect what they see fit I guess.

Let nature take its course I say, humanity has screwed with earth and its humble inhabitants too long. God is coming soon to fix the virus in humanity.

Lake poisoning seems to have worked to kill invasive pike

sfgate.com.../c/a/2007/10/02/BAOHSI41V.DTL

One pulled so far weighted in at 20 lbs

They expect some trout to survive

Your link didn't work but I found the article:

Lake poisoning seems to have worked to kill invasive pike

...So far, however, brown bullheads - a type of catfish - make up about 75 percent of the dead fish plucked from the lake. About 8 percent of the poisoned fish were pike, including one 47-inch beast weighing about 20 pounds. Rainbow trout made up less than 1 percent of the total, Martarano said.

The other dead species found in the reservoir included largemouth bass, golden shiner, and pumpkinseed sunfish. Coyote, herons and other wildlife were busy this week scavenging fish corpses, which game officials said pose no danger to mammals...

bold:mine

It's a moot point to debate/argue on this poisoning since it a done deal

I just hope that everything goes as planned by the California agency who poisoned the lake.

I decided to do a search on the progress of the poisoning of Lake Davis to get rid of the Pike.

Here are two recent articles on the progress:

Nearly 50,000 pounds of dead fish removed from California lake
...Martarano said northern pike accounted for about 6 percent of the dead fish removed. Eighty-two percent of the dead fish were bullhead, a type of catfish, and less than 0.5 percent were trout.

“We found mostly big trout,” Martarano said. “We believe the smaller trout were eaten by the pike.”...

Fish-killing chemicals dissipating

...The chemicals used to disperse rotenone remain detectable, but all levels were reduced when lasted tested Nov. 5, he said. The U.S. Forest Service has lifted a portion of the public closure imposed before the poisoning.

Lake Davis, its shoreline and all roads leading directly to the reservoir will remain closed to the public until officials determine the area is free of rotenone and its constituent chemicals, said Michele Jimenez-Holtz, a spokeswoman with the Plumas National Forest.

Spath had no estimate of when the chemicals might all be gone...

I hope it doesn't take too much longer for this poison to dissipate to a non-detectable level.

The latest info on Lake Davis :

Fish and Game faces fish stocking quandary

At the October meeting of the steering committee, Ed Pert, the agency's manager for the Pike Eradication Project, had reported that only sub-catchable fish (1/2 pound to 1 pound) would be stocked this fall and that the larger stockings would happen in the spring. Personnel expected to stock 17,000 pounds of 8-12" trout before the lake froze.

Since then, the fish have apparently grown quickly, are now 1 1/2 to 2 pounds in weight, have grown too large for their quarters, no one knows how many pounds they now total, and all need to be released by Dec. 15.

The Lake has still not been declared clean of the poison used to kill the fish a few months ago and now the fish scheduled to be stocked in the lake are growing so fast that they may have to be placed elsewhere.

How much longer until the lake is clean?

The chemical levels have reduced enough to allow the restocking of trout in Lake Davis, the lake will remain closed until it gets three consecutive "all clear" tests, this article goes over the entire story and is worth the read. I echo the author's hope that Lake Davis can return to the trout fisherman's paradise that he describes.

The recovery of Lake Davis

Lake Davis will always hold a special place in my memory.

It was at this lake near Portola where, as a 12-year old aspiring fisherman, I landed my first big German Brown Trout — a 5-pounder! I’ve since caught many that surpassed that one, but few were as memorable as my first monster brown.

Keeping my fingers crossed for Lake Davis

reply to post by JacKatMtn

I checked my map and Lake Davis is in the high Sierras northwest of Reno. It is a relatively small, natural lake that drains into the Feather river system and the Sacremento River. If the pike get out and spread they would make quite a mess of the ecosystems downstream. The Davis Lake area is definately trout country naturally and it is sad to see pike infect the area. But pike don't know the difference as they are opportunists and thrive almost anywhere in northern lattitudes.

Fishermen, they either like pike or they think they are a pest. The ones that like them are usually from the midwest or Europe where large pike are estemed.

Up here in Alaska pike usually don't grow very large and resemble a snake fish with an allegator mouth. They eat anything and everything. They have lately infected lakes and river systems around Anchorage (where they have not been a native species). Again because of some blankety blank pike fisherman stocking them. There are entire river systems here that used to be hot king salmon (and other) fisheries and now have next to no king salmon. People don't go there to fish anymore, guides have lost their jobs, lodges are empty, flying services don't fly there anymore. But you can catch an occasional pike if you like pike!

Science does not know how to kill pike yet other than to poison the whole lake or river. Someday we may be able to use other means but not yet. And Rotenone is a relatively natural and safe insecticide and pesticide. I don't like using it but it may be the lesser of 2 evils.

Well it has been awhile since I have found anything on the status of Lake Davis...

Until today, it seems there is a major uproar over the 2007 lake poisoning by the Ca fish & wildlife, although I have to agree with one of the comments after the article tying the loss of revenue to the economic recession.

I am more interested to see if they find evidence of the Pike the program was intended to eradicate. They are waiting for the lake to thaw to see if they can find any. It looks doubtful and now any sighting would only be used in helping in the litigation.

Just want to keep the info here in one thread and hopefully follow this until the end.

Communities near poisoned Lake Davis angered by financial impact reports

PORTOLA – No one has reported a northern pike in Lake Davis for 18 months, but this community continues to roil over the effects of the invasive species and a $16.7 million project to poison the species.

Controversy over the economic damage caused by the pike eradication project has rekindled community resentment toward the California Department of Fish and Game, which dumped 16,000 gallons of fish-killing chemicals into Lake Davis in September 2007.

Frustration was aired this week, after consultants hired by the department outlined the financial impacts of the project to the Portola City Council and the Lake Davis Steering Committee, a group of community leaders and local officials.

[edit on 3/26/2009 by JacKatMtn]

Why don't they let commercial fisherman clean out the lake for them?

There are enough hungry people in the world to make good use of what they catch.

Don't blame the State for doing what it has to do. These Northern Pike are planted on purpose by jerks who think it is funny. It is a form of Environmental Terrorism.

People up here in Alaska have done the same. Northern Pike destroy all the indigenous species and wreak havoc with the system. For some reason people who like to fish for them take it upon themselves to haul in minnows and let them go so they can fish for them. They don't give a damn about the damage it does.

They are having the same issue in Canada as well.

They have to kill them, they have no choice.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Understood Blaine, I am just trying to follow this story to it's ultimate conclusion, it is ironic that the evidence so far says the effort was successful in getting rid of the Pike, but the people are now looking to go after the state to make up for a slow economy.

Wouldn't it be a shocker if some of those close to the local economy actually try to reintroduce pike into the lake in an effort to garner more support in their charges against the state?

Just the conspiratorial mind at work

Pike are native to north america, Small mouth bass on the other hand are not, now that is an invasive species. Small mouth and Large mouth bass decimate our lakes in Canada because they are the only known freshwater fish not to eat their own fry. I have been fishing a lake in Ontario, Canada now for 5 years, and the bass are going crazy. They thrive on the warm water, where pike and muskie, native to the region, need cool highly oxygen saturated water. I have been trying to get the bass population down but doesn't seem to be working. (They are delicious by the way) And yes, Canada does have the population to overfish lakes, as what is happening in the USA. People are selfish and stock their freezers every year. The lake i am currently fishing for Pike and Muskie, was a fly in lake back 20 yrs ago. Long story short, logging started in the area and the workers would come to the lake (and this is no word of a lie) with canoes and catch record Pike and muskie, however due to being in canoes, also brought along the good ole .22 rifle so that they could bring them in. What people need to realize is that Big Fish spawn Big Fish. I am avid about catch and release practices. I do on occasion have a shore lunch don't get me wrong, but i dont abuse nature, but more respect it because there are a lot of good memories to be had on the boat in the middle of a lake. Muskie are endangered species in Canada, due to the lack of reproduction and over fishing. They are an intelligent and elegant fish which should be treated with respect. So i emplore all fisherman out there to heed my words. Catch and Release. Catch and Release. There is plenty of fish at the market that is raised in tanks to help with the natural order. Have a shore lunch with the grandkids, nephews, family sure, but dont rape and pillage our lakes for the sake of bragging rights please.
TECH

reply to post by JacKatMtn

I promise to do my best to cull the herd this week coming, along with its bigger cousin the Muskie. Wish me luck!

Why not capture the over amount and send free food where its needed?

The Pennsylvania Game Commission drops a probe into the water then electrifies it.

All the fish get stunned and float belly up. Then then check to see what's in the waters by doing a count. nothing gets killed. The fish swim away shortly after.


California could have used the same technique and merely used a net to scoop up all the Northern Pikes. They could have hired a company to do it for free and they could have ground the fish up to make catfood and sold it.

California could have made money off of the problem. Too bad they are idiots and resorted to POISON again.