LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – FOX5 is continuing to follow an ongoing fish tale in Henderson without an end in sight. What is in sight, hundreds, if not thousands of goldfish currently taking over a Henderson pond after the Homeowner’s Association in Cadence tried to remove them last year.
Alex Harper is a biologist and resident in the are, he explained why pet store fish can damage the Cadence Central Park pond when they’re dumped.
“People get them because they’re easy and they’re cheap, and then they want to do something with it and they do something like that,” Harper said.
Harper shared it’s great the HOA is trying to remove the fish, but he knows the problem won’t just go away.
“You can go through great lengths to remove the fish if they’re visible, but it only takes a couple leftover to begin reproducing,” Harper said.
The biologist explains why the issue will keep circling the drain unless the HOA takes a drastic step, since they have no real predators in the pond.
“They’re probably here to stay, unless they were to drain the pond at some point and do that,” Harper said.
The HOA told FOX5 removal efforts have begun, and the goal is to remove them as humanely as possible.
Our FOX5 crew showed up to the pond twice on Friday and didn’t see any crews removing fish. Neighbors told us they hadn’t seen crews in the recent days.
Harper says he has seen this sort of thing a lot in his line of work.
“It’s a really common issue. All of our parks have non-native species dumped into them that don’t belong there and it causes us big problems,” Harper explained.
The HOA calls the goldfish a nuisance more than anything. But Harper explains the real problem is the design of the pond itself, since turtles have no place to get out.
“They have no place to get out and bask like there’s no rock in here, nothing for that,” Harper said. “When people are releasing these turtles, they don’t actually know that they’re actually dooming them.”
The Nevada Department of Wildlife recently told FOX5 the same thing as non-native species have been taking over Southern Nevada waterways.
As for the goldfish, koi fish and turtles in the Henderson pond, Harper says there’s nothing really regulating their population.
The HOA wants people to stop feeding the goldfish since that only makes the problem worse.
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