DENVER — Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials removed 14 massive, invasive carp from a pond at an Arvada park last week, more than 30 years after the fish were introduced as part of a national study.
State officials were tipped to the presence of bighead carp at Jack B. Tomlinson Park by an angler, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a news release Monday.
Agency officials removed the fish after stunning them with an electric current in the water Wednesday. The 14 carp appeared to be left over from a 1992 study to see whether they could reduce nuisance algae, state officials said.
It’s unusual for bighead carp to live that long, CPW spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said in an email, but the fish didn’t have any natural predators or competition for food in the pond.