Carp are the main attraction at harbor

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2007 | 7:42 a.m.

Joe Ornelas cooks up plate after plate of crispy golden french fries only to see his creations get tossed into Lake Mead.

When you're the cook at the Harbor House Cafe & Lounge, feeding the fish becomes part of the job description.

New York has its Central Park pigeons. Ocean beaches have seagulls. And Lake Mead has swarms of carp at the Las Vegas Boat Harbor near Boulder City, where the sometimes enormous fish lurk in the water in groups so thick it seems man may be able to walk on water.

More than one tourist has tried, landing with a splash. It's also a tradition at the harbor's small gift store for employees to take birthday swims with the fish.

The carp have been swarming the harbor as long as anyone can remember. The fish are barely noticed by locals. They are just there, even following the harbor when it was moved last year.

But Southern Nevada's tourism and transient population means every day someone new discovers the fish sticking their heads out of the water, begging for food, not unlike dogs below the dinner table.

And food they get, making them gather around the docks like squirrels at a bird feeder.

Popcorn and french fries are favorites.

Technically it's illegal to share your snack with the carp.

"They should be eating things they are supposed to be eating," said Roxanne Day, a spokeswoman for the Lake Mead Park Service.

But it apparently doesn't do too much harm. If it did, Day said, there would not be so many of the brownish creatures cruising the docks.

And the girls running the gift shop aren't about to stop people from feeding the fish. Popcorn sales would probably decrease 80 percent, one said.

The dock boys have adopted one especially large carp as a pet and named him David, spending the long hours in the sun creating myths about how he rules over his fish kingdom.

Sometimes a parent with an odd sense of humor will hold a child over the water as the fish bob up to try to suck on the young one's toes. The kids, according to the bartenders and cashiers who spend hours observing people interacting with carp, either scream bloody murder or giggle.

Tourists often pluck the fish right out of the water so they feel like a great adventurer bare-handing a meal.

Nobody, though, eats Lake Mead carp.

Because while in many Asian countries carp are a delicacy, at Lake Mead, they're simply scenery.