The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-08-19
Recession of Ponds Leaving Them
High and Dry 10 Resulting
In the Death Of
Millions.
INVESTIGATION rs MADE
Dubuque Paper Finds That More DE
This Way Than Killed by
Illegal Fishing Each
Season.

Complaints are received each sum.
mer from the people along the upper
Mississippi, especially, that fish are
dying in the ponds along the river
from which the water has receded.
This season, on account Of the con.
tinued lack Of rain there have been
more than the usual amount Of COM
plants. The Investigator from Du-
buque endeavored to establish the
extent of said complaints. and found
them for the most part true.
According to the Dubuque Tele.
graph Herald. the special investiga.
ton revealed the following:
In ono pool about fifty feet wide
and ono hundred feet long, which
was not more than eighteen inches
deep at its deepest point, the fish
were so thick that there seemed to
be hardly room for them all. The
outlet Of this pool was at least foot
above the level of the river and the
water In the pool had lowered, by
evaporation and seepage. until there
was none flowing out. An anglers dip
net dipped at random into the pool,
and brought out. in less than a min.
ute, more fish than could be accom-
modated in q minnow bucket.
These fish were not the ordinary
minnow, but small fry bass, pickerel,
sunfish. perch and carp, little fellows
as finely marked as though they we're
a foot long instead Of two or three
inches. There were few minnows
among them, but they were vastly in
the minority, the pool seemingly be-
ing filled with game fish fry.
Every Pond Filled.
A mile further up the river another
pool was found, not quite as large as
the first, but just as densely popu-
lated with fish, which the dip net
proved was largely game fish. A
short distance above this pool was
another large one, and half mile
further was pool larger than any Of
the others. And so the repetition
went on up the river for ten or
twelve miles. Every pool was filled
to its capacity with small fish unable
to get out.
1t is only a matter Of a few days,
perhaps a week, before these ponds
will all be dry, either through seep.
age or through evaporation. When
the ponds do become dry the fish will
all die. as already they have begun
to do in the pools which were higher
and were land-locked sooner by the
failing waters. All along the edges
OF the pools examined. and out into
the water as far as the eye could see
the bottoms Of the pools, we're tracks
of cranes and other predatory birds,
which have been living on these fish,
which are unable to escape them be-
cause Of the shallow water.
Millions Of Fish.
Each year the state Of Iowa pays
thousands of dollars IN maintaining
a fish hatchery from which 1t supplies
the rivers and creeks with game fish.
Each year the state pays thousands
Of dollars to game wardens to make
sure that no one fishes illegally. And
each year the state permits to die in
pools left high by the receding river
freshets, more game fish than it
raises in its fish hatchery in ten
years, and more fish than all the IL.
legal fishing that could be done in the
state would catch. The fish that die
in those pools do not number simply
hundreds or thousands, but number