[KoiCop]

Since you've already danced this dance with JR on two other boards, please allow me take a stab at it?

In the old, old, olden days, Luke, back when they still had books -- and long before the advent of electricity & greenhouses -- the rice farmers of Niigata put their koi into bunkers in the hillsides and covered the pits with lumber and straw.

Why this ancient practice? Because it accomplished several things:

* It protected them from the wind;
* It protected them from the worst of the cold;
* And it protected them from the light until it was time to come out.

They needed to be protected from being exposed to light before they were ready to come out since premature exposure to light would have roused the koi too soon and signalled to them to wake up from stasis, thereby diminishing their already nearly exhausted reserves of energy with more winter yet to come.

And back then, that slight loss of energy reserves might have made the difference between their koi surviving the harsh winter or perishing.

That's the history and that's the science. Make sense?