This morning my son called me out to the garden as he'd spotted 2 cats trying to catch our pond-fish. I ran out and they legged it.

I scanned the top of the pond and could see no water around the edges that would indicate they had been successfull (the pond is partly raised, with patio slabs aorund the top, easy to see if there is water on the edge).

Sadly, a few hours later, while hanging the washing out, I spotted a dead fish on the lawn, one of our koi (about 8lb in weight) :(

It was too far away from the pond to have jumped out and didn't show much sign of injury other than a few missing scales. We were sure one of the cats had fished it out, but couldn't understand how they would have pulled such a large fish out of the pond.

Just been chatting to my son about it and when he saw the cats, they were both sat next to each other, it looked as if they were trying to cacth fish together. Seems like they teamed up, that's how they managed to get the fish out :( It also explains why a couple of our fish have scratches on them - cats have been after them :(

Should've learnt our lesson a few years ago when we lost about 8 small fish in a matter of weeks, found in a neighbours garden, intact, just dried out & dead :( We assumed that the over-hanging slabs we've put around the top would have offered some safety to the fish - obviously not the case.....

We've had to put netting over the top of the pond, takes away a lot of the peacefull, beauty aspect of the pond, but at least the fish are safe.

I'm so mad with myself for not checking the garden for fish, if I'd found the fish when I checked the pond, I'm sure it would have been fine.........

Poor fishy :(

Is there an e-collar for cats ?!!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist !

Poor fishy! Just as well we're too rubbish at pond maintenance to dare put fish into the pond we have in our new back garden, not only do we have plenty of cats in the neighbouring houses, but I daresay Henry would have tried to get them out himself, he had a strange love of fish! :-p

> Is there an e-collar for cats ?!!!!!
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist !

LOL :-D

(seriously though, sadly there is :( )

> not only do we have plenty of cats in the neighbouring houses, but I daresay Henry would have tried to get them out himself, he had a strange love of fish!

Ahh bless him :-)

So very pleased Buster hasn't the taste for fish like your Henry - if he jumped in I wouldn't be able to help in back out!

Luckily our cat has frightened herself away from the pond, after catching sight of her OWN reflection it it, LOL  - she had a spitting/hissing contest with her refelction and the reflection won!! :-D

what a shame :(
what would work and can be rather decorative is to add a foot wide shallow moat arround the pond - it can be planted up with pretty marginal plants or have cobble stones artistically arranged in it.  cats might dangle a foot when they can see a fish but they won't sit in a moat of water.

> cats might dangle a foot when they can see a fish but they won't sit in a moat of water.

LOL, no they are not keen on water are they! Great idea and I bet it would look lovely, however, our pond is partially raised up to knee-height, so we couln't do that. Perfect idea for a ground level-pond though :)

I have my eye on a nifty device that squirts water at anything it detects with it's sensor, but hubby is not so keen. Despite the fact the netting doesn't look very nice, it will also stop the fish jumping out of the pond during spawning too  we lost 2 whopping koi a couple of years ago after they jumped out of the pond during spawning, so I think I'm going to have to just grin & bear the netting.

Hubby built a pond ( his 1st attempt at brickwork after buying a brick-laying tool he'd spotted on a shopping channel! :-) ) we planted it up and added fish. The koi became very tame and would come to our dangling fingers. Sometimes we would see next doors cat trying it's luck but the fish were too fast and had plenty of hidey holes. Last year OH trimmed back some overhanging bushes - WHAM!!!!! The heron came and cleared out all but one koi! We went straight to the pond shop, bought netting, poles and another koi - by the time we got home, the blasted heron had been again and taken the last one :(

We sort of lost heart after that but put up the netting and poles - it does ruin the look! OH is turning the pond into a water feature this year with just pebbles and fountain!

oh god this brought back some nasty memories!Years ago I had 2 ginger kits who used to go fishing in my very nasty neighbours pond-he even called the police!When I asked if hed got a net over the pond,his reaction was-"I shouldnt have to,should I?"cringe!

sorry to hear about your fish, at least with the net you know it wont happen again.

my brother use to have the same problem with his 3 cats and there pond untill they took the fish out of my pond when i moved, i had a huge carp (dont know what type as my unkle stole it appeantly) and this fish had a habbit of catching pigeions and trying to drown them. So when she moved into there pond and their cats tryed to fish it out the cats got dagged into the pond! after going for a few swims they now stay away from it.

mastifflover, it may have been a heron and the cats disturbed the heron as that is a massive fish for a cat to catch.  My dad has his pond cleared out by heron so now has nets, a fake heron and other devices in place.

From memory, they used to have a grid with net over it to stop children falling in!  Then just netting but I am sure now that there is clear wire crisscrossed round the perimeter so it doesn't look like there is anything there but it means the cats and herons can't get at the water properly to fish.  It is hard to describe but there are pins like tent pegs embedded into the stone round the perimeter of the pond so the wire runs round the pond about 5 inches from the edge and then is also criss crossed across the pond.  It seems to work as no fishing has gone on recently.

> it may have been a heron and the cats disturbed the heron as that is a massive fish for a cat to catch

Could well be. We'd never thought of that, it was a big fish.

I get what you are describing. We are thinking of doing something similar when we have the money but using 6inch high trellis along the inside edge of the top of the pond - much more decorative than the naff green netting!. We'll need to change the pond-edging from patio-slabs to wood (deking planks, prob.), to get a fixing. For now the horrid netting will have to do.

> We sort of lost heart after that

Oh no :( I'm not suprised you lost heart. It's a suprising amount of work & care that gois into keeping a healthy pond, the fish become very loved and it's heart-breaking to have something like that happen :(

Lol mastifflover!!!!!

>Luckily our cat has frightened herself away from the pond, after catching sight of her OWN reflection it it, LOL  - she had a spitting/hissing contest with her refelction and the reflection won!!