Fish wars
or mmm . . . duck
By James ZieglerDuh duh. The iconic Jaws theme rumbles in the back of my mind as I watch a large orange-and-white koi slowly stalk an unfortunate duck looking for a meal on the surface of the pond. With a hard swish of its tail, the fish jets in for the kill and nips at the duck’s behind before shooting off to the left and leaving one very surprised duck.
The koi in Manito Park’s Japanese garden have good reason to be hostile this year.
“That’s because they’re under attack,” gardener Lars Erpenbach says.
The current batch of fish were all donated after a disease spread by goldfish that visitors had left in the pond killed the original koi. Now the new koi are under attack from natural predators in the park like heron, raccoons and even ducks.
But the koi won’t be having duck for dinner tonight.
“I just feed them regular fish food,” Erpenbach says.