What to Do About Asian Carp? Great Lakes States Can’t Agree

[XemaSab]

The leaders of the Great Lakes states had come to a moment of calm, glassy waters. It was 2008, and after years of negotiation, politicians in the eight states around the lakes had reached agreement on a compact that would protect their (and their Canadian counterparts’) precious fresh water from what they saw as one of the Midwest’s biggest threats: tapping from other, water-hungry regions.

But a different threat soon broke the peace. Tests began indicating that genetic material from Asian carp, a nonnative, voracious fish with the potential to upend the lakes’ ecosystem, had been discovered in the major waterway system leading to Lake Michigan. Last year, fears grew worse: A 19.6-pound bighead carp was captured there not far from the lake — beyond an elaborate electric fence that had been built to prevent just such an outcome.

The states have split. Some, led by water-ringed Michigan, have filed legal actions aimed at ending access from the nearby tributaries of the Mississippi River, where Asian carp already are flourishing, to the Great Lakes. Others, including Illinois, have objected, saying any such closing would interfere with Chicago’s ability to control flooding as well as with the commercial barges that haul sand, coal, cement and salt through the waterway.

In the eyes of some, the fierce debate has shouldered out discussion of other pressing concerns on the Great Lakes: pollution, repair of harbors, restoration of wetlands and even an early test of the compact, expected in the coming months, about whether to divert water to a city not on the lakefront, Waukesha, Wis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/us/in-great-lakes-states-a-divide-over-the-asian-carp.html?_r=1&hpw

[DCKit]

1. A full-on, year-round open season for anyone who wants to fish for them.

I've heard they're not actually bad eating.

[pscot]

2. They are filter feeders

so they won't strike a lure. Wing shooting is a popular method of catching them. Induce them to jump, then blast em in mid-air. I'm not sure you'd want to eat what's left.

[waddirum]

3. You can't really fish for them

They eat very small aquatic species. They don't really go for bait.

However, they are startled by electric motors and jump out of the water into the air. There is an annual redneck fishing tournament in Bath, IL, where the flying Asian Carp are caught in nets. Check out youtube. There are a bunch of videos of the flying carp in the Illinois River.

[AnOhioan]

4. My vote has always been to seperate the Great Lakes and the Mississippi System

Will it cause some economic harm to the shipping industry? Probably...but that cost would pale in comparison to the economic damage the entire Great Lakes Basin would suffer if the Asian Carp were to establish themselves in the lakes.

[madokie]

5. Who ever came up with the bright idea to introduce them to our waters should

have his/her ass kicked clear up between their shoulders.
Whose responsible for that anyway, anyone know?

[AnOhioan]

6. here ya go

"Bighead and silver carp were imported by private fish farmers in Arkansas in the early 1970s. They were used to control plant growth in fish ponds, but by the early 1980s, both species had escaped into open waters. With no natural enemies, the fish have reproduced rapidly and traveled up the Mississippi River."

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/bigstory/archive/2011/10/asian-carp-qa.shtml