Wildlife managers announced on June 5 that San Carlos Lake, a large reservoir on San Carlos Apache Tribal lands in eastern Arizona, is closed to the public until further notice after a ‘‘major fish kill’’ that the San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department says impacted approximately 100% of the lake’s fish population. The department said decomposing fish create a health and safety risk for visitors and urged people to avoid the area while officials assess the situation.
Dead fish litter the exposed shoreline of an Arizona lake following a massive fish kill that prompted an indefinite closure.
The department described the die-off in a public post on its Facebook page, linking the event to a combination of extended drought and releases of water from a nearby dam. Those conditions, officials said, produced circumstances that led to the widespread mortality of fish throughout the reservoir. In its advisory, the agency listed a set of immediate prohibitions designed to protect public health: fishing is prohibited, harvesting or possessing fish from the lake is banned, and any recreational activities associated with fishing are not allowed until the closure is lifted.
Aerial and shoreline images taken earlier in the spring had already shown the reservoir at dramatically reduced levels, and the department had warned of potential problems weeks before the mass die-off. On April 3 the department posted that San Carlos Lake was at just 1.93% capacity and that water levels were falling at an estimated rate of about 0.5 percentage points every 10 days. Officials cautioned then that boat launching could soon become impossible and that a fish kill was a possible outcome if the trend continued.
Photographs from April 22 included with the department’s updates showed the lake at roughly 7% of normal, illustrating the extent of the decline in surface area and depth. The reservoir stretches across tribal land and features more than 150 miles of shoreline, making it one of the larger lakes in Arizona; its low water levels have been a visible sign of the state’s persistent dry conditions this spring.
A containment boom and small boat near the dam at an Arizona reservoir as officials respond to the fish kill and enforce the lake's closure.
Officials have described containment and monitoring efforts in the area, including the deployment of a containment boom and small craft near the dam as crews respond to the die-off and to help enforce the closure. The department said it will continue to monitor water and shoreline conditions and provide updates as they become available. At the time the closure was announced, wildlife managers asked the public specifically to respect the boundaries of the affected area and to avoid attempts to access the lake for recreational use.
Requests for additional information from wildlife officials about timelines for reopening, the scale of the mortality event, and potential environmental or economic impacts had not been answered immediately. The department’s social posts said only that it would continue to monitor the situation and issue updates, and that visitors should not attempt to harvest or possess any fish from the reservoir. Local residents and recreational users will likely be watching for further notices as managers assess water quality and public-safety risks.
San Carlos Lake lies roughly 160 miles east of Phoenix and is situated south of the community of Peridot. The reservoir’s role as a regional recreational resource makes the closure notable for anglers, boaters and local businesses that depend on summertime visitation. For now, though, the official message is straightforward: the lake is closed until officials determine it is safe for the public to return and for fishing-related activities to resume. The department has pledged continued monitoring and said it will provide updates through its regular public channels when new information becomes available.