Iowa Department of Natural Resources Fisheries biologist, Ben Wallace, says testing at Storm Lake has confirmed the disease that killed thousands of fish.
He says this is the first known outbreak in an Iowa lake. Wallace says they can’t say for sure how the virus got into the lake.
Wallace says the heat and spawning were likely contributing factors that made the virus worse. Removing carp can help improve water quality — but Wallace says this outbreak only killed young fish in the same year of growth.
He says these type of carp kills has happened at many lakes in Minnesota, and Wisconsin, but there’s no way to know if it will happen again here.
He says it takes a lot of conditions to come together to cause the problem in the fish who carry the virus.
Wallace says the fish are decomposing pretty quickly and scavengers, like raccoons, catfish and crayfish are also eating away at the fish.
