{"id":3464,"date":"2026-08-05T20:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T20:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2026-08-05T20:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T20:03:48","slug":"heat-drought-likely-behind-fish-kill-near-lovelands-boyd-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3464","title":{"rendered":"Heat, drought likely behind fish kill near Loveland\u2019s Boyd Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…<\/strong><\/div>\n
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For months, Bill Prater watched Horseshoe Lake slowly disappear.<\/p>\n

From his home a few hundred yards away, the past president of the Loveland Fishing Club saw the privately owned reservoir shrink into a patchwork of isolated pools as places that had held water earlier in the summer gradually became mud flats.<\/p>\n

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So he wasn\u2019t exactly surprised when the lake\u2019s fish began dying and floating through the inlet to Boyd Lake last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lake is essentially emptied,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when the die-off really took hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

What followed was dramatic, but not entirely unexpected in a summer marked by prolonged heat and dwindling water supplies.<\/p>\n

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials estimate that thousands of fish died in Horseshoe before entering the Boyd Lake channel, creating a startling \u2014 and increasingly unpleasant \u2014 scene that quickly spread across social media. Most of the dead fish were common carp, with smaller numbers of walleye, white bass, shad and catfish.<\/p>\n

Because Horseshoe Lake is privately owned, CPW does not manage or stock its fishery and did not investigate the conditions that caused the die-off. The Greeley-Loveland Irrigation Company manages water levels within the irrigation system that connects Horseshoe and Boyd lakes. The ditch company could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

AJ Macdonald, president of the Horseshoe Lake homeowners association board, provided an email that he said was sent to residents within the HOA. The email said the board reached out for help in saving the fish population after learning that the irrigation company \u201cintended to draw the lake to such a low level.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After contacting the ditch company and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and learning \u201csaving our fish was not a high priority,\u201d the board reached out to the fish farm that stocked Horseshoe Lake and came up with a plan to save the fish by relocating them and then restocking them the following year, according to the email. They applied for a permit from the state to do so legally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owner of the fish farm was assured by the state that our permit would be approved last week and that they could start moving fish immediately,\u201d according to the email. \u201cNo action has been taken as our permit has still not been issued. Unfortunately, now all our fish have died. \u201c<\/p>\n

CPW crews were able to salvage some fish that were still alive in the inlet and relocate them to another body of water that already contained carp. The remaining carcasses will largely be left in place.<\/p>\n

The agency also emphasized that the fish did not die in Boyd Lake and that the lake\u2019s existing fishery has not been affected.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s just dead fish that flowed into the inlet,\u201d CPW Public Information Officer Kara Van Hoose said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot you can really do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the exact cause of the Horseshoe Lake fish kill has not been determined, experts say prolonged heat and shrinking water supplies have created conditions that make fish kills more likely across Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hotter the water is, the less oxygen it naturally holds, and, at the same time, the hotter the water is, the more oxygen fish use,\u201d said Chris Myrick, a Colorado State University professor of fisheries and aquatic sciences. \u201cSo it\u2019s a double whammy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When a lake shrinks, fish can also become concentrated into a smaller volume of water, further increasing demand on a limited oxygen supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a limited amount of water, limited amount of oxygen, fish that are using a lot of oxygen even when they\u2019re resting,\u201d Myrick said. \u201cThen you just run out of oxygen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myrick did not inspect Horseshoe Lake and cautioned that confirming the cause of a fish kill normally requires water-temperature and dissolved-oxygen measurements taken at the site. Investigators may also test for chemicals, toxic algae or other possible causes.<\/p>\n

Still, he said the frequency of fish kills and emergency fish salvages around Colorado this summer is not surprising.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this year it\u2019s been exacerbated by starting off with relatively low water levels in some of the reservoirs,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then high temperatures just make it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dead fish themselves are unlikely to pose a danger to Boyd Lake\u2019s surviving fish or to wildlife, Myrick said. Unless a toxic substance caused the deaths, carcasses are commonly left in place, where scavengers consume them or they decompose and return nutrients to the ecosystem.<\/p>\n

That natural process has not made the inlet a pleasant place to visit, according to Prater.<\/p>\n

Dead fish have collected in the shallow water and along the exposed lakebed, where some remaining fish could still be seen swimming among the carcasses earlier this week. As decomposition set in, the piles produced an increasingly foul smell, Prater said.<\/p>\n

They have also attracted an array of hungry birds, like herons and gulls, taking advantage of the abundant food.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a birder, you\u2019ll be able to see all kinds of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prater also said he has noticed signs of stress among fish in local fishing spots and worries that additional lakes could become vulnerable if temperatures climb again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might not be the end of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Bear hanging around north Louisville neighborhood captured and released in wild<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of dead fish drifted into Boyd Lake after a die-off in neighboring Horseshoe Lake, likely due to . heat, drought and low oxygen experts say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nHeat, drought likely behind fish kill near Loveland\u2019s Boyd Lake - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3464\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heat, drought likely behind fish kill near Loveland\u2019s Boyd Lake - 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