North Rhine-Westphalia: Helpers rescue carp from an almost dry pond

Mettmann (dpa / lnw) - Several helpers rescued more than 100 carp from an almost dried up pond in Mettmann.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Helpers rescue carp from an almost dry pond

Mettmann (dpa / lnw) - Several helpers rescued more than 100 carp from an almost dried up pond in Mettmann. The former managing director of Kalksteinwerk Neandertal GmbH, Willi Schaefer, had noticed that the company's former sedimentation tank had almost no water left due to the lack of rain in the past few weeks and the fish in it would not have had a chance of surviving without help.

Schaefer informed the current owner of the former premises, farmer Moritz Stöcker. The boss of the Bachelsberg estate came on Sunday with some employees to save the animals. According to Stöcker, more than 100 carp were fished out. "That's how you get around Sunday," he said dryly to the German Press Agency on Monday.

The action was very difficult because the muddy terrain was difficult to access. "We sometimes had to lay boards and planks to get to the fish," said Schaefer. Some helpers would have been up to their hips in the mud. "We then had to pull them out again with ropes," said Schaefer.

Since he breeds koi carp himself, Schaefer has the necessary rescue equipment such as long-handled landing nets. The men then fished the carp out of the pond in rubber boots and put them in a huge barrel. Sometimes the helpers even grabbed the animals with their hands. The fish, which were only 20 to 30 centimeters long, were later released elsewhere.

The pond does not have a natural inflow such as a stream or river. Schaefer reported that it was once about 100,000 square meters in size and has always housed carp. Before the onset of drought, however, the mud pool only had a diameter of around 50 meters.