I thought I'd share a pic of my fish theif. I had just stocked my little pond with a dozen comets and look what showed up. Notice his neck? It's full of fish!
fish theif
Wow.. you sure rang that dinner bell loudly! Sorry to hear.. at least you caught him in the act instead of just going out and finding the pond empty and wondering what happened.
Tammie
Been there! I got wiped out in two days via early morning raids.
He is certainly an expert fisherman!
AWWWWWWWWWW, I HATE THOSE DARN BIRDS :( I looked out my glass door the other day, it was just pouring rain to beat the band! All of a sudden I saw something huge and black just darting around in my pond! I lunged for the binoculars and ACKKKKKKKKKK, it was one of those darn cormorants just getting all the koi he could! Head up in the air, wings all the way out and it was dive, dive, dive! I put on my boots and got the umbrella and ran likek mad down to the pond, could not find my trusty ole tin pans tho, darn! Way before I got down to the waters edge, the darn thing flew off! I called for the fish, but nothing came to see me :( I hope they are still in there, and most likely scared out of their....scales :(
Herons, raccoons, cormorants - makes ponding more of a sport than a hobby.
I have two ponds: a small 4x6 which is one foot deep, and it flows into a larger 8x10 pond that is 2-3 feet deep. Both have (had) a lot of fish.
The upper small pond had 15 comet and smaller fish up to 5 inches. The deeper pond has 20 or so larger fish, including 5 Koi that are about 12 inches.
A week or so ago I discovered that ALL of the fish in the upper pond were GONE!
The lower pond fish weren't touched. I have never seen a heron, and racoons are rare. But there are a plethora of squirrels.
My question is: Do squirrels eat fish? If it had been a racoon, I would think he would have gotten the bigger fish in the larger pond. I'm guessing that whatever it was could not swim deep enuf to get at the fish in the deeper pond.
Again, could it have been squirrels?
Absolutely not. Squirrels are exclusively herbivores. If your fish disappeard ovenight the culprit was a raccoon. A day light raid was a heron or other fishing bird. If conditions aren't too wet or rainy, you can leave a light dusting of flour around the pond perimeter. The tracks will tell the tale.
Squirrels are actually omnivores ...... And only in spring are they hungry enough to eat other things, which is when their main diet is at its lowest.
I doubt they ate fish this time of year.
It's funny that I just happened to look up squirrel info. the other day.
Squirels are omnivours and will eat bird eggs or baby birds from nests in the spring.
As far as eating other animals I'm not sure.
But I think it is HIGHLY unlikely they would eat your fish.
You might have a snake eating them?
Some sort of a bird-heron geese? do they eat fish?
or possibly a coon.
There are other water loving agile animals but I have no idea what they eat. Like otters muskrats, beavers or platypuss.
I would try the flour and see what you find.
Totally OT, but speaking of squirrels I have to tell you about the new "sport" of squirrel fishing. Seems that if you tie a peanut or other squirrel delicacy to the end of a fishing line and cast it out into the yard the little beasties will latch on and not want to let go. It was a really funny video of a guy up in a tree reeling in the squirrels. They would sometimes get several feet off of the ground before dropping off. Was pretty funny and the squirrel always got something for playing along.