More than 25 million pounds of removed carp and $4.9 million later, biologists are already beginning to see some of those desired results — including the return of vegetation crucial to the June suckers’ continued survival.

The original goal was to remove 5 million pounds of carp each year in order to reduce the population enough for the vegetation to come back, said Mike Mills, coordinator for the June sucker recovery program. Though the 5 million per year goal has never quite been reached, the density of the carp population in the lake has dropped drastically.