Officials look for answers to stop killing fish
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A fish biologist with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife investigated a reported fish kill early Thursday morning just below Lake Tenkiller Dam on the lower Illinois River, north of Gore, involving at least 400 fish.
State biologist Josh Johnston said, “This is substantial fish kill, and it could get a lot worse if something doesn’t change.”
Brent Higginbotham, a long-time fisherman from Oklahoma City, reported the fish kill to state game wardens early Thursday.
“I fish here a lot and when I got here this morning I saw a dead spoonbill and some bass and a walleye,” Higginbotham said.
Higginbotham said he reported it when he saw lots of fish stacked up on one bank.
“What’s happened,” Johnston said, “is the dissolved oxygen level has gotten low because there is no fresh water coming in from the dam.”
Johnston reported finding 21 paddlefish, three smallmouth bass, one rainbow trout, one largemouth bass, 75 to 100 blue catfish, four flathead catfish, one walleye bass, 50 gizzard shad, 10 channel catfish, 15 drum and two spotted bass dead. He said he spotted about 200 blue catfish piping, which is surfacing to find air.
A statement released from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sept. 15 said corps representatives, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA) met Sept. 12 to address the challenge of sustaining the trout fishery in the Illinois River below the Tenkiller Dam during the continuing exceptional drought.
Johnston said the trout are very susceptible to changes in water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels, but it is really bad when catfish and other fish begin to die off.
Johnston said trout require four milligrams of dissolved oxygen per liter of water for them to survive. The state has stopped stocking trout in the river.... READ MORE
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