Koi Rescue in Scottsdale AZ I belong to the Greater Phoenix Pond Societyand we got an email from Lenny Beard who rescues ducks, and is basically on call for the city of Scottsdale. He was out rescuing ducks one day at an abandon golf course who's ponds were being drained. The city of Scottsdale is taking over the property which has 8 ponds (6 are significant size). The city plans to expand the northern most pond, line it with clay so it doesn't leak, then fill it with just water (no fish) for irrigation purposes. The rest of the ponds are to be drained and filled in with dirt, then the property is to be converted into a city park.

Want to get involved? Phoenix Koi Rescue

So Lenny was rescuing ducks and saw a large fish which looked like a koi, so he tossed some bread near the shore to lure the fish closer, and as it came up he netted the koi with his duck net. Then promptly sunk in the mud up to his knees. He managed to crawl out of the mud and took the fish to a veterinarian who confirmed that it was a koi, and that it was perfectly healthy. Lenny then contacted the koi club, and I volunteered to go out and rescue the koi.

I met Lenny at the ponds and we instantly got along great. Later we learned some neat coincidences. He was a single dad, and I am a stay at home dad. He was the first male girl scout leader here in Phoenix, and I am currently a girl scout leader. No wonder we get along like 2 peas in a pod.

On the first trip, I netted 8 koi, and had to stop because my 55 gallon barrel was getting full. Then I went home, started calling other club members and was able to get rid of all the koi by 10am the next day.

Thinking there were only a few koi left, I headed back down just about every day to meet Lenny and toss the net some more, and each day we thought that there would only be a few left. How wrong we were....

Seems like every time we said "looks like there is only one koi left in there", the next day I would net 6 or more.

Then one day along came Tim Simmons. He asked us what we were doing, we explained we were rescuing koi - and he offered to help. Sure enough he got sucked into the effort and spent many days out there with us tossing a cast net and getting very muddy.

We organized a few group work days and had lots of volunteers come out to help. One of them owned a 100' long seine net which we used to drag a couple of the ponds and get large amounts of koi.

Some people were concerned about the health of the koi since they were in a pond that was not monitored. With some lucky timing, a koi seminar was in town and a veterinarian was holding a wet lab where he talked about bugs and drugs. He asked the club to provide a few "sick koi" so we could examine scrapings under a microscope. I gave them 5 of the small koi fresh from the ponds, no treatments at all. He examined them and they all were CLEAN !! No parasites or diseases at all !! I asked how could this be, and he said that in a mature pond like the golf course had, there are organisms that prey upon the parasites that attack the koi. He said that mother nature has a balance for everything, and this was a prime example of it.

So for the wet lab, another member quickly ran down to walmart and bought a couple of cheapy koi which upon examination were loaded with parasites. The vet said the reason for that is because they only have one filter for the entire display case so if there is one sick fish, they all share the same water and get the same parasites.

Over 2 months, going out 3 to 4 times a week, we rescued a total of 82 large koi, half were in the 18" size, and the other half were 25" or above that.

We also rescued many (like 50-100) of koi in the 4"-6" size range, and probably 300 of the 1" fry size. When someone would pickup a big koi, I'd twist their arm into taking a couple of small ones and a scoop or two of the fry.

Stragely there were no koi in the 10"-12" size range. My best guess is that the herons which patrolled the ponds daily were cleaning that size out.

People who breed koi say that when breeding colorful koi, 80-90% of the fry can be olive colored. There has been question as to how quickly a population of colored koi can turn olive in the wild. This picure of the 4-6" koi is a good example of the small ones we caught, they were either all olive colored, or had ghost markings -- meaning their fins had color, and their head had streaks of color. Not one of the fingerling or fry we caught was of a light ornamental color. So either they were too easily picked off by birds, or the population was moving back to the natural colors.

The plastic tub in these photos is 20" long on the bottom, or 24" across the diagonal of the bottom.

















I only kept 2 of the koi, this is one which I had caught with my daughter's pink barbie fishing rod and 20 lb test line. She named it Madonna, even though she is definitely a he.

We also kept this one which my daughter named Daisy. Pretty sure she is actually a HE also. At first I though the redness near the dorsal fin was part of his coloration, but another club member said it looked like an ulcer or other damage. I treated it with an antibiotic and it seems to be clearing up now.

On the final day of pumping on the last pond, Lenny and I went out to get the last few. A bunch died before we got there, we were only able to get a few of them and a couple died on the way home. And in the process Lenny went into the mud up to his arm pits, literally. Did manage to catch and keep this one alive - 3rd from the last that we caught, I was standing on a full sheet of plywood that had sunk about 12" under the surface of the muck and was continuing to sink lower. Tried to figure out what to call him -- was thinking would like to name him something that would make people think of perseverance, courage, determination, tenacity -- then it hit me, there is only one name that sums all that up, it is "Lenny". So got home and the girls agreed with me, that is his name. Sure enough, one of my other koi immediately started to try and spawn with him, so I think he is actually a SHE.