Illegal fishing threatens wildlife at Wetlands Park, sparks conservation concerns

Elizabeth Bickmore has worked at Wetlands Park since 2015, and she’s seen a lot in this once-barren wash — from flourishing plant life to non-native Australian red claw crayfish.

The flora and fauna can be found swaying in the breeze or wading in or around the various ponds within the 2,900-acre park near Sam Boyd Stadium on Tropicana Avenue, Bickmore said.

But recently, Bickmore has been shaken by some disturbing discoveries: Dead turtles lining the ponds, abandoned fishing lines wrapped around their bodies or hooks jabbed into their necks, have become common at the park.

It’s all a result of illegal fishing, which Bickmore said had become more prevalent in recent years at the park, which is operated by Clark County.

Residents have also told park officials of seeing dead turtles.

“People are fishing quite a bit, I mean, oftentimes we hear about people fishing out there (or) we either see it personally,” said Bickmore, the programs manager for the park. “We’re here to bring people closer to nature, so that’s why you should just come in and enjoy the nature and not try to take nature home with you by taking a fish.”

Although Bickmore said she believed illegal fishing had been a problem since the park opened in 1991, the number of complaints from visitors and park staff has increased recently.

Wetlands Park includes a 210-acre nature preserve and five trailheads, where Bickmore said they most often see illegal fishing occur. The park is free to enter and open from dawn to dusk.

But since its creation, the park has been off-limits to fishing, said Doug Nielsen, the conservation education supervisor at the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

“Our game wardens do make regular visits to the Wetlands Park and enforce the ‘closed to fishing’ regulation, while also addressing any other legal issues they might encounter,” Nielsen said in an email to the Sun.

Officials don’t track the amount of citations they’ve issued, but Nielsen indicated it was a low number. Violators can be fined between $50 and $500, and face a jail term of up to six months, according to the wildlife department.

With various ponds and about 6 miles of the Las Vegas Wash within park borders, Bickmore said it’s hard to enforce the no-fishing rule. Wetlands Park also has a dedicated force of about 140 volunteers — known as “Wetland Watchers” — to help report rule breakers. But they have no authority to issue citations.

The Las Vegas Wash and ponds in the nature preserve are considered “non-fishable and swimmable” according to the State of Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners. About 80% of the water moving through the park is clean water, Bickmore said.

Much of the water is runoff from people’s homes — for example, when they wash dishes — that has been directed to a wastewater treatment plant, treated and discharged to the wash or its ponds.

The wash and ponds also contain shallow groundwater, though. This groundwater can be anything, from untreated stormwater after rain to polluted urban runoff that washes off streets.

“There shouldn’t be any fishing there, and it’s not safe for the people fishing for one thing because you just don’t want to touch the water,” Bickmore said.

Wetlands Park has about 314 species of birds that visit each year, as well as coyotes, beavers and raccoons that call the preserve home year-round.

Bickmore said that many people dump their nonnative fish and aquatic species into bodies of water that wind up flowing into the wash and into Wetland Park, which can affect the local ecosystem and draw illegal anglers.

That’s how the park got the “lobster-size” Australian red claw crayfish and the spiny softshell turtles that have most recently become victim to the fishing lines and traps. 

Many visitors have complained to Bickmore and her team about the leftover fishing equipment. One “very upsetting” instance occurred when someone discovered that a fishing hook got stuck in the neck of a spiny softshell turtle.

There was another instance Bickmore saw of a turtle that had gotten tangled in abandoned fishing lines and drowned. It was that incident that led the Wetlands Park team to change how it informs the public about illegal fishing.

Signs plastered around the park now show a picture of that drowned softshell turtle bordered between two big phrases: “Illegal fishing kills more than fish” and “There is no fishing permitted in Wetlands Park at any time.”

“We put that image on a sign … it’s just showing (that) if you wanna come out and fish here, you’re affecting the wildlife that are here,” Bickmore said. “You’re not just catching the fish, you’re catching other things, too.”