There's something seriously wrong with this picture of an Asian Carp. The same could be said of President Obama's $78.5 million plan to block the invasive species from entering the Great Lakes.
The Obama administration has announced a $78.5-million strategy to try to block Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes. The plan calls for navigational locks and gates in Chicago-area waterways to be opened less frequently than usual, reports the Associated Press.
When those locks and gates are opened poison will be released to kill any Asian carp waiting to pass through on their way to Lake Michigan. Poison was dumped into a stretch of the Chicago River in 2009 for fears that the invasive species had made it past two electrical barriers. Of more than 90 tons of dead fish collected and taken to a landfill only one dead Asian Bighead carp was found.
According to officials a $10.5 million contract will be awarded to build a third electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The two existing barriers were designed to repel the carp and give them a non-lethal jolt if they turn back.
There’s another $13.2 million for construction of barriers to prevent the carp from sneaking into the canal from the adjacent Des Plaines River during flooding. And an additional $9.5 million will be spent to 1) promote commercial fishing of carp, 2) research chemical treatments to kill off the carp if the non-lethal electric barriers fail, and 3) to study other control techniques such as neutering or developing poisons that would kill the carp but not other fish.
The $78.5-million package will be divided between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the navigational structures; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Fish and Wildlife Service; the Coast Guard and State and local agencies.
With the exception of State and local agencies these are pretty much the same folks that brought the Asian carps over to the United States in the first place. The common carp was brought to the U.S. in 1831, and up until the late 1800s they were distributed widely throughout the United States by the government as a foodfish.
This created much needed jobs along the Illinois River as the freshwater commercial fishing industry grew. Extensive regulations and poor public perception of the common carp as a foodfish in the United States all but destroyed commercial fishing on the Illinois River.
Then the Bighead and Silver carp were introduced to farm and commercial ponds in the southern states prior to 1990 to control the algal blooms in catfish ponds and possibly provide a secondary market as a food item. Record floods in the mid-90s is most often blamed for the carp to have escaped the ponds into the Mississippi River.
The Bighead carp can grow to more than 4-foot long and exceed 100 pounds. The Silver carp usually tops out at 40 pounds and when spooked by motorized boats will jump in large pools often injuring boaters.
Carp are related similar to tilapia, a warm water fish usually found near the equator. Tilapia are considered as prized foodfish in the United States while carp are more valued in Europe and Asia. Although tilapia are on the list of 100 of the World’s Worst Alien Invasive Species they were recently introduced to the United States in Arizona in the canals that serve as the drinking water sources for the cities of Phoenix, Mesa and others. It has since been discovered that most wild tilapia today are hybrids of several species. In other words they adapt.
President Obama might reconsider his carp plan. If they want to promote commercial fishing they might consider changing the name from Asian carp to Illinois tilapia. That or take the $78.5 million away from the experts that suggested bringing known invasive species in to the United States and use it to pay a dead-or-alive bounty on Asian carp all along the Mississippi watershed. Grind them up and use them for fertilizer.
Doing so might revitalize an industry long dormant and create economic opportunity in the small river towns of America.
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This post is dedicated to my late father, Charles E. “Tramp” Swan, who knew a thing or two about freshwater commercial fishing on the Illinois River.
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11 Comments
I think we should be allowed to take people on licensed bighead skeet shoots !
Ivan's story brought back a memory. You see, I too, was a great carp fisherman back in the day. With a little extrapolation, I think I know how to solve the current problem…it should work at least as well as Obama's proposed methods and probably will employ more people, be more environmentally friendly, and cost less. Plus its a lot of fun! I'll describe my method here and let you be the judge of which idea has the greater merit.
It all started on a warm day in Downers Grove. I was wandering about the neighborhood, lamenting the fact that my go-cart was temporarily out of commission and I didn't have much to do. A friend came by and said the fish were jumping down at Prince Pond. We hopped on our bikes and raced over for a look. Sure enough, there were lots of fish, swimming in circles near the shore and jumping every once in a while. We decided it was a good time to go fishing, but then one of the older guys said no way would we catch these fish right then with a hook and line! Of course to an eight year old, anyone older is an authority, so we took his word for it and dropped the hook and line idea.
But just then I saw the biggest fish anyone had ever seen in that little pond! It had to be way past two feet long! Now that was HUGE compared to those little bluegills we usually caught, why it was even bigger than the foot-long bullheads some of the older kids would sometimes catch. We were excited! How could we get that monster out of there? I thought for a moment, then it hit me. I didn't have a net, but maybe something else I had would work. We raced back home and I grabbed a part off the broken go-cart.
Speeding back to the pond, we found that old granddaddy scaled monster still slowly spinning circles where we had left it. With no time to waste, I precariously leaned over the bank and with one lightning quick swoop, snared that old fish with the fan belt off the go-cart! I gave a mighty yank, hoping old granddaddy would land at my friend's feet and that I wouldn't end up in the muddy water in his place. As an eight year old's luck would have it, it worked! The monster flew through the air and with a thud, landed on the muddy shore next to my friend.
My buddy danced all around the flopping, mad scaled monster, trying to keep it from sliding back to the water, not real sure whether it was safe to touch something that big with armor plate all over it. I lassoed it again with the belt, and flung it further onto dry land. We waited a minute or two more and finally I got up the nerve to grab it.
By now, some friends had run over, noticing the commotion. One of the guys had a bucket with some water. Holding the flopping fish by the tail, I dropped it into the bucket. More than half his length stuck out the top of the bucket, thrashing and splashing water all over the place! We quickly hooked the bucket over my bike's handlebars, and made a beeline for home with half the neighborhood following along and old granddaddy flailing about.
At home only a block away, we found a larger tank for Mister Granddaddy Carp and gave him a healthy supply of water. Now it was our intention to keep this fantastic fish alive and charge admission to see him, but higher powers had other plans. Apparently our good fortune had caught the attention of the adults in the neighborhood, and soon the local newspaper, the Downers Grove Reporter, showed up on the scene with a photographer.
We were famous! Our Granddaddy Carp was on the front page of the afternoon paper, surrounded by the brave Carp Catchers and friends, and accompanied by a careful explanation of our great exploit. All agreed it was the largest fish ever caught from Prince Pond. Our neighborhood was really on the map now!
Well, as I said earlier, higher powers had other plans and our prize possession didn't make it much past the second day in captivity. We never did make any money off the deal, but who cares, we were famous! And my mom got some good garden fertilizer out of the deal, so she was happy. In fact, pretty much the whole neighborhood was happy, well, at least the kids!
So, Mr. President, if you could arrange to appropriate some old fan belts off those cash clunkers you're stuck with, and as a great community organizer, I'm sure in no time you'll have an army of Carp Catchers ready and willing to clean the waters of Illinois. No toxic chemicals, hydrocarbon energy, or excessive carbon dioxide will be expended by this method, and of course it will require a great deal of attention from the press, and sell lots of newspapers. All this should create many more jobs and help our dismal unemployment numbers. With summer approaching, we can certainly use the fertilizer for victory gardens so we have something to eat. Why, maybe even the White House garden could use some? Yes sir, right here in Illinois. We're an innovative bunch. We can solve this problem and do it for less!
Please tell me you sent the $3 bounty and fishing ideas up the governmental food chain before they try something idiotic and expensive. People need jobs.
By the way, being a *cat,* of course I am biased toward the idea of eating the fish. 😉
$3.00 bounty on a carp! You bet, I'm there. Had a buddy one summer and we spent all day on a Saturday carp hunting. Heck, anything from nets to spears to baseball bats were used. I forget what lake it was but it was in McHenry County. We were paid by the pound and by the end of the day, the group holding the carp hunt hauled away 4 semi dump trailers full of carp. I would have never believed that so many carp were living within that body of water.
Talk about some great spending money for the rest of the weekend but it was an experience I will never forget. I often wonder how well dynamite would work but the tools we were using were working out well. First thing I thought of when I saw the movie Crocodile Dundee and he was fishing just off of the New York City coast.
You are right, put a bounty on them and they're under control real quick and jobs were created at the same time.
Anyone who wants to taste the finer cuisine of buffalo carp should add Riverview Restaurant and Bowl in Beardstown, Illinois to their restaurant list. Visit when the watermelon are ripe and you're in for a real treat.
Erin, you must be a river rat. Commercial fishing is the cleanest most job producing and most effective method. Put a $3 bounty on them and they'll disappear quickly.
PS: Here's a bit of commercial fishing history in Illinois. At one time the Illinois River produced the 2nd largest harvest in the nation. I would argue, however, that Tramp Swan was the best commercial fisherman in history. 🙂
Here's an educational carp link:
http://www.cerc.usgs.gov/Branches.aspx?BranchId=4…
There's plenty of up-to-the-minute carp news, plus links to videos of carp expert Duane Chapman, who can teach you how to fillet and de-bone silver carp, another white meat.
These invasive fish will no doubt go where they want, regardless of traps or chemicals. I ask you, isn't it a good idea to decrease their specific numbers along the rivers before they get to these "barrier" points? Wouldn't jobs be created in the process? Mabe everything in the asian carps path wouldn't need to be destroyed along with them. Commercial fishing seems sensible.
I guess I should have used similar rather than related. Tilapia, like carp, eat plants and/or algae, dig up the bottom, fight with and destroy the habitat of other fish.
Both species are known for their rapid growth and tolerance for high stocking densities and poor water quality. Both were imported to the U.S. on the whim of scientists.
The carp imported in the 1830s were deliberately released into the rivers as a cheap food source. The two more recent carp species, bighead and silver, were brought in to remove algae and the like from ponds in Arkansas. Floods and "human-mediated release" enabled them to find their way into and up the Mississippi.
With the recent floods in Phoenix and Tuscon I suspect we'll be hearing of tilapia takeovers of streams in the southwest. I understand tilapia don't do well in water temperatures below 60-degrees. I also understand they breed with other fish. I suspect natural hybridization occurs as a survival mechanism within the basis of evolution but that's just my guess.
Rotenoning of the canal and other waterways is bad policy. It kills all the fish and insects that do not escape minimal contact with it. It is not uncommon for the effects to last two weeks in water. In 2000 it was reported that injecting rotenone into rats causes symptoms of Parkinson's disease to develop. The study doesn't directly suggest that rotenone causes Parkinson's disease in humans but its consistent with the belief that chronic exposure to environmental toxins increases the likelihood of the disease.
As I weigh the benefits, effectiveness and fairness of the removal of the Asian carp it appears that $78.5 million should go into the hands of the people living with the consequences of bad policies rather than the bank accounts of those who created them.
Carp are not related to tilapia, except that they are both teleosts, which includes all fish except the sharks and rays and a few other odds and ends like hagfish and lampreys.
Adaptation is different from hybridization. The carp hybridize, too, by the way (silvers with bigheads), but there is no evidence one way or the other that the hybrids of tilapia or carp are more adaptive. F1 hybrids (parents of purebred fish) show hybrid vigor, but that is as far as it goes.
Your article implies that it was a bad thing that only one carp was found after the rotenoning of the canal. The whole point of that event was not to kill a bunch of carp, it was to keep any carp in the area from swimming through the barrier while it was turned off for maintenance. The carp don't usually float when they are killed with rotenone, so we don't have any idea how many were killed, but we think we did kill them between the dam and the barrier, so that is a good thing. We think the fish that got around the barrier probably passed during the spring floods of 08, when there was opportunity to swim around the barrier. This is where the catastrophe lies. We did not know (no eDNA then) that the carp were that close then, but many of us had been harping on this issue for years – that the carp could swim around the barrier during floods. We can't be sure this is the way the fish on the wrong side of the barrier got there, but it is a likely source, along with human-mediated release.
Thank you for the post. I agree we should use the $ to revitalize jobs in small river towns in America. Why would we dump chemicals into our precious small freshwater supplies, when we can create clean honest opportunities.
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