Asian Carp Knocking At The Door of The Great Lakes

NASTY FISH SPECIES THREATENS THE GREAT LAKES ECOSYSTEM

In July 2010, a 3-foot-long, 20-pound Asian carp (that's a little one) was caught by a fisherman about six miles downstream of Lake Michigan in Lake Calumet on Chicago's South Side. Further East in Indiana, carp spawn has been discovered in the Wabash River, capable of flooding into the Maumee River, which flows into Lake Erie.

This was the latest bad news in a long running battle against a very ominous invasive species: the Asian Carp. It is widely believed that once the Carp make their way into Lake Michigan, they will quickly devour the other fish and pretty much everything else in the Great Lakes, including the "sports fish"* that comprise a $7 billion industry.

It is also widely believed that the battle is close to being lost, in spite of the increasingly desparate efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers.

ASIAN CARP STATS:

Max length: 4 feet

Max weight: 100

Daily "to do" list: eat 40% of their body weight

Nasty habits: Can jump 10 feet out of the water when started. A boater was killed in 2009 by a leaping Asian Carp

*The fish do not consider this a sport, only the fishermen.

Asian Carp Prepare to Eat the Great Lakes

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT EVERY TIME HUMAMMALS FIX THINGS THEY GET MORE BROKEN?
The history of the Asian Carp is similar to the history of kudzu. The giant freshwater monster species was originally imported into the South to consume algae on catfish farms. In the 1990's flooding provided a route into the Mississippi River basin for the cagey fish.

For decades, silver and bighead carp have been migrating up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers toward the Great Lakes. Nature provides no natural waterway between the systems, but man did. The Chicago River, which used to flow into Lake Michigan, now flows in reverse, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Mississippi-Illinous systems is now connected to the Great Lakes through a series of canals and locks, which also provide an important navigable waterway.

Two elecric barriers have been constructed to prevent the migration, but the Carp have breached this last line of defense.

Once the Carp arrive in Lake Michigan, they will have to compete with other invasive species that have been screwing up the in the five decades since the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed. At that time nobody was worried about European lampreys, zebra mussels, alewives and round gobies, which were deposited in the Lakes via the ballast water of ocean-going vessels.

It's only taken us a few decades to screw up a 12,000 year old watershed.

DON'T WORRY: THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS IS ON THE JOB!
The Army Corps of Engineers - the people who build the levees in New Orleans and other successful projects - is studying alternatives to the electric barriers that are currently failing to stop the big fish, but it says it will take years to complete the analysis. The Asian Carp, on the other hand, and not taking time to study the situation, because they are hungry for lake trout. It's kind of like waiting for all the data on climate change to be analyzed.

Historically, the Army Corps of Engineers has been charged with screwing up ecosystems in order to build navigable waterways for agriculture and especially petro chemicals. In the past decade, the role has begun to change, and they are being asked to restore wetlands and stuff. In any case, they aren't likely to move fast enough to prevent the spawn of the Carp from Hell, bue to their inherent beaurocratic nature and to the politically charged situation. The politicians will be pointing fingers, but fish don't have fingers, just hungry hungry mouths.

The surest way to prevent the carp from eating the Great Lakes is to close the commercial shipping lanes, but that would endanger a whole separate industry. The ages old quandry of human commercial activity vs the welfare of the natural world will play out again, and guess who will lose?

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