Tilapia coming to Walker Park, no fishing for a month

The pond at Walker Park is going to be closed to all fishing activities for 30-days starting Monday, June 3, in an attempt to give the newly released Tilapia fish a chance to "do what they do," a suggestion provided by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission as a way to help revitalize the pond.

Parks and Recreation director Elroy Brown said the department has been making some major strides to cleanup Walker Park and are now focusing on cleaning up the pond. The AGFC issued a management plan with three suggested ways to help clean up a pond; installing a new or better aeration system, draining the pond and cleaning the "muck" or introducing a type fish that will eat algae -- particularly Tilapia.

The management plan stated that doing any one of these three things should have a big impact on the overall health of the pond, but Brown said instead of picking one of the three they have chosen to do two -- putting in a new aeration system and releasing a load of fish, the latter being the reason for the break in fishing activities.

"We're following the management plan from Arkansas Game and Fish they suggested any one of three steps to help revitalize the pond, but we took it a step further and we're doing two of the three," Brown said, "We put the fish in and we've already got the pump ordered. We're not even attempting the second one because even after you dig it out -- which is expensive -- you don't know that it's going to work.

These fish are going to be a big help to the pond. They get in there and feed off the algae. These Tilapia can survive in this kind of water -- and they can help make it clean enough for other fish to survive. If this works we could bring in some little bass and some other fish."

The pond will still be open for people to come and enjoy, but they won't be allowed to fish for 30 days. This will give these algae-eating fish time to start getting the pond clean, as well as completing a reproduction cycle -- which Brown said happens every 30 days.

"We're doing what we can to try to make the pond nice again, make it a place people want to go, but now were asking for the help of the greater community," said Brown, "Just give us these 30 days to let the fish do what they do and then it'll be a much better experience for everyone who heads out there."

The pond will be closed to fishing June 3-July 3, opening back up in time for the Fourth of July holiday.