Invasive smallmouth bass have become established in Lake Tahoe, posing what researchers call a "much more ferocious threat" to native fish than anything that has come before.
"We've had reports of smallmouth bass before, but now we've 100-percent confirmed its presence in Lake Tahoe," said Kevin Thomas, environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Game. "The population could explode and put more stress on the native fish."
The finding was announced Monday by the University of Nevada, Reno. It came during a UNR project with Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which removed 5,000 invasive fish from the near-shore aquatic zone.
Sudeep Chandra, a UNR limnologist, found that decreased ultraviolet radiation in the near-shore environment, caused by increasing cloudiness in Tahoe's waters, creates favorable conditions for the bass.
Non-native fish including smallmouth bass have less tolerance to UV radiation from the sun, which may enable young fish to survive in rocky areas where the species prefers to breed.
The news came on the eve of today's annual "Tahoe Summit" at Homewood, at which politicians and policymakers will discuss projects to reverse environmental decline at the lake.
Chandra urges planning officials to begin monitoring aquatic ultraviolet levels as a measure of water quality, rather than the secchi disk that has been used as a visual indicator of water clarity since the 1800s.
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