Biological Survey — Oswego Watershed 67 



III. CARP CONTROL STUDIES IN ONEIDA LAKE 



By W. M. Smaixwood 



Professor of Zoology, Syracuse University, and 



P. H. Struthers, 



Assistant Professor of Zoology, Syracuse University 



It was in 1905 that Cole's* paper on the German carp in the 

 United States was published. Little of importance on carp fisheries 

 has appeared since that date. It is greatly to the credit of the 

 Conservation Department that attention is again focused on this 

 species which has become so numerous among our fresh water 

 fish. 



Every one who has attempted to work out with accuracy the 

 habits and life history of any animal has recognized that the 

 numerous difficulties are greatly magnified when the object of 

 study lives in a large body of water. Most Natural History studies 

 and the more modern ecological investigations cover a period of 

 years when the object of investigation is a terrestrial form. Years 

 have been given to a study of plant relations in such a habitat. 

 So when we undertook to obtain accurate information concerning 

 the food, daily life and spawning habits of the adult carp, and the 

 development and food of the young carp in a lake containing 

 about eighty square miles with a shore line of nearly sixty-five 

 miles, we recognized that the first summer would be mostly in the 

 nature of reconnaissance and the trying out of methods. 



It is generally agreed that the carp have become very numerous 

 in many of the lakes of New York State; and it is equally agreed 

 that sportsmen regard them as a distinct menace to the develop- 



* Cole, L. J. The German Carp in the United States. Rept. U. S. Com- 

 missioner of Fisheries. Washington, 1905 (1904). 



Channel in the Montezuma marsh, a place where carp spawn 



