Fishermen all over Britain are mourning the death, apparently by poison, of Benson the Carp. Benson, a 25-year old Common Carp weighing 64 pounds was found floating belly-up in Kingfisher Lake near Tansor in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England last Wednesday. The assumption of poisoning is based on the presence of "nuts," natural or artificial, around the edge of the lake, as well as several empty bags that once contained nuts; the nuts in question are apparently undigestible. The lake in question is an artificial stocked lake in a housing complex. Benson was part of the first batch of carp to be added to the lake when it was first stocked in 1995. Back then, Benson the carp weighed a mere 24.5 pounds. Kingfisher Lake is famous as a stocked catch-and-release site.

Despite her name, Benson was a female, originally paired with a male named Hedges. Hedged disappeared after 1998 floods. She was famous, even notorious, because anglers would often catch and release her. This particular practice does rather make me cringe; fish do feel pain. You can read about her death here.

Common Carp or Cyprinus carpio is an exceedingly common freshwater fish thanks to deliberate and inadvertent introduction all over the world. They are close enough with common goldfish to inter-breed, and the exotic, expensive collectible Koi are a sub-species.