Have You Heard of Asian Carp?
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A former Great Lakes Echo colleague once wrote a column about the cross between invasive species and his “awkward, futile dating life,” called How Asian Carp ruined a relationship.
He discusses a date where a new lady friend admitted she had never heard of Asian carp, the invasive species ready to take over the Great Lakes and potentially ruin the $7 billion a year fishing industry. With a slightly pompous and condescending description of the impending doom, he ends the budding relationship.
Before I moved to Wisconsin, I held a similar standard for potential mates. A knowledge of Asian carp and other basic environmental issues seemed necessary. But now, in Door County, that standard does not seem to hold.
Wisconsin has a huge amount of lakeshore, and a huge number of people rely on the Great Lakes for their livelihood. As we reported in Costs of Aquatic Invasive Species Are Adding Up, Wisconsin spent $12 million dealing with aquatic invasive species (AIS) in 2009 and 2010. That’s a lot of cash.
If we add an infestation of Asian carp – giant fish that jump out of the water and eat everything in site – that number will almost certainly grow.
But for some reason, the Asian carp issue isn’t well known here. If I use it as date criteria, I’ll be almost certainly out of luck.
Maybe that means that as a reporter with an eye for eco-news I haven’t been doing my job. So here it goes, a quick list of recent events in the Asian carp world:
- In early December, a Federal judge tossed a lawsuit that five Great Lakes states, including Wisconsin, filed about the carp. The states wanted barriers placed in the waterways that link Chicago and Lake Michigan to prevent the carp from spreading to the lakes. Some U.S. Senators have taken up the charge.
- A 47-pound Asian carp was found in a Minnesota lake, signaling the fish’s ability to move spread from the Mississippi River.
- An idea was proposed to modify a lock and dam system in Chicago to keep Asian carp from moving into Lake Michigan. The system could use poison, deoxygenation or heat.
- Asian carp have jumped on the photo bomb trend, showing up in pictures across the Great Lakes basin.