Clark County detectives want help in odd theft of hundreds of fish

Sheriff’s detectives are asking for help solving what they called an odd theft — about 200 koi and other ornamental fish stolen from a Clark County business.

Employees at Green Vista Water Gardens on Dayton Road discovered the business had been broken into overnight when they opened up on Sunday morning.

The colorful fish, valued at $6,000 to $8,000, were removed from display ponds and plastic crates, including Japanese koi and albino catfish, business owner Stephen Blessing said.

“They went through crate by crate and picked the fish they wanted and skipped the smaller fish they didn’t want,” Blessing said. “But even more surprising, they went to our display ponds, which would have been very difficult in the middle of the night to do. And they handpicked and in some manner netted some of our big display fish we’ve had here for a number of years.”

He suspects someone took the decorative fish used in ponds to resell them.

“They would have to have a facility set up to handle the fish,” Blessing said. “They could not just take that quantity of fish and put them in a tub of water and expect them to survive … We have to assume they took them with the idea of trying to sell them, and sell them fast and probably cheap.”

Clark County Detective James Hollopeter suspects two or three people might have been involved.

He asked residents to call the sheriff’s office if they saw a truck or vehicle parked on Dayton Road on Saturday night or Sunday morning or people walking through the field near the business.

“This is a lot of fish that somebody has out there and I’m hoping somebody has information on helping us find who that may be,” Hollopeter said. “This is one of the stranger ones. It’s unique enough I think that maybe somebody out there knows something.”

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