MILL CREEK PARK Exotic fish rocks the boat

The Division of Wildlife will check Lake Glacier for more exotic species.
By MIKE BRAUN
VINDICATOR OUTDOORS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- Nobody knows how long the strange and exotic fish was lurking in Mill Creek Park's Lake Glacier before washing up dead.
It's a fishy mystery that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife intends to investigate further in the coming months.
About a month ago the Mill Creek Metropolitan Park District Police Department received a call from an angler at Lake Glacier about an odd fish found dead at the lake.
Officers arrived on the west side of the lake near the fishing pier and found the decomposing carcass of what looked like a carp. Measurements by police found the fish to be 51 inches long.
"It was huge," said Carole Potter, a spokeswoman for the park.
The fish had been found and dragged to the shore by an unidentified angler.
Looked like a carp
Lt. Bruce Emery of the park police said the fish was reminiscent of a carp, but that the mouth area looked more like a largemouth bass. Samples of the scales were taken and sent to the Division of Wildlife District Three office in Akron, Emery said.
Bill Beagle, a spokesman for the District 3 office, said Thursday that the consensus among four biologists at the office was that the 51-inch fish was a bighead carp.
Unlikely cause
Beagle said that according to Wolfe it is highly unlikely anyone could have caught, kept and then released a fish of that size. "That means it was probably placed in those waters at a much younger age," he said.
Other state officials said it is highly unlikely the fish came up the Mahoning River as there is a 12 foot drop below the dam on the river. However, Emery said an ice dam below the Glacier damn this past year backed up water nearly level with the top of the dam.
"It was the highest I've ever seen it," he said, and suggested that it was possible that the fish got in the lake at the time.
Meanwhile, concerns of the division, Beagle said, include how long the fish was in there, where someone could have gotten the fish in the first place and how many more of the species could be in Glacier.
Information from various state wildlife agencies about the fish indicates that it is a voracious eater and will dine on just about any type of food, competing with native fish. State biologists said that the carp will out-eat native fish in the larval stage, causing a decease in the populations of the native species.
Electro-fishing likely
To help determine if there are any more of the bigheads in Glacier, Beagle said that the division will likely electro-fish the lake, possibly by mid-September. Beagle said division personnel will shock the body of water using portable power generators, temporarily stunning the fish and enabling a sampling of what species are in the lake.
"Electro-fishing seems to excite these fish, causing them to leap spectacularly out of the water," he said.
The species has also been spotted in Lake Erie, raising fears that the nonnative species may spread throughout the Great Lakes.
"They can compete -- and sometimes out-compete -- with the native wildlife for food in that area, which can throw the ecosystem off," said Mitch Snow, a spokesman with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in the AP report.
Bigheads were imported from Asia in the 1970s and 1980s to control plankton in fish farms in the south, said Jerry Rasmussen, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a coordinator with the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association.
"I've seen them jump into boats, and I've seen them jump six to 10 feet into the air," he said. "They're pretty astounding."
braun@vindy.com