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PROVO, Utah (AP) -- An average of nine-thousand pounds of carp per day were caught by commercial fishing crews on Utah Lake in the past ten days.
It was part of a pilot project to try to protect the rare June sucker and return the lake to a more natural condition.
Kris Buelow of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District says the pilot project shows that four or five more fishing crews are needed.
With an average of 120 days each year when it is safe and productive to fish, program managers must find a way to remove about 46-thousand pounds of fish per day.
The June sucker -- native to Utah Lake -- has been on the federal endangered species list since 1986.
Lake managers will do another carp removal project this winter, and they would like the program to be fully developed by next symmer.
Carp are bottom feeders that root up the lake bed. As the carp destroy natural vegetation, shelter for young June suckers and other native fish is lost.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
