Columbus parks employees have cleaned up hundreds of fish from the round pond in Mill Race Park after Mother Nature threw a curve ball that the fish couldn’t survive.
About 500 fish were found floating on the surface of the pond which is in the center of the park on Monday, victims of what is called a “lake turnover.”
Columbus parks employees used a large number of nets to remove the fish on Tuesday. Most of the dead fish were catfish, carp, chads and suckers, traditionally fish found near the bottom of Indiana rivers and lakes, according to parks employees.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources Lt. Angela Goldman said the natural occurrence of a “lake turnover” is not uncommon this time of year in the state, and usually happens in shallow ponds and lakes which tend to warm up quickly as summer temperatures rise.
When a cooler rain follows the pond water warmup, which happened in the Columbus area last weekend, the warm pond water stirs up particulate matter on the bottom of the pond that was not previously exposed to oxygen, decomposing rapidly and drawing oxygen out of the water, according to naturalists. If this happens fast enough, there isn’t enough oxygen in the water to support the fish and they die.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
