Above them, on the bottom of the shallow pool, under the splash of the pipe, sat a crayfish. As mortality rose among the trapped carp, the scavenging figured to be excellent here. In the distance, atop the Sonoma Creek levee and on the shortgrass plain to the north, a dozen egrets and great blue herons stood in a wide-scattered gathering, and these opportunists were waiting for sure. An opportunist myself, I decided to spear a carp and see what it had been eating. The stomachs of fish are full of surprises.
Carp have the barbeled, bottom-feeding look of fish who dine on unexpected things.
Underneath my curiosity, I recognized even then, was a measure of bloodlust. A dash of murderousness is instinctive, I think, in most predatory creatures, hungry or not, when game offers itself up in this plentiful, serendipitous, somewhat stupid way. I had no qualms about killing carp. This disaster for the carp was hardly an ecological disaster. It was ecological justice.