Asian Carp

So You Don't Know A Thing About Asian Carp? Well...

History Asian Carps have really paved a way into North American waters. All Asian Carps except for the large-scale silver have been cultivated in aquaculture in China for over 1,000 years. They have a great significance in Chinese culture. They are often used in literature and as symbols. The Carps meant a sudden rise in a persons’ social status such as honoring someone royal or being married into status. In fact, there is a big ancient fish pond called “Yu-Le-Guo” (Fish’s Paradise) located in Hangchow that is filled with Carps. It is a tourist attraction seeing as people like to feed them with bread crumbs. In China, grass, silver, bighead, and black carps are labeled as the “Four Domesticated Fish” and have grown to become the most important freshwater species for food and Chinese medicine. The first of the species to be brought to North America was the Common Carp in the 1800’s and in modern times are seen as a native species to most people. In the 1960’s to 1970’s grass, black, silver, and big-head were brought to North America by U.S fish farmers for aquaculture to control algae and snail populations. In 1987, sterile grass and bighead carps were introduced to Canada in Alberta to help with research on the control of aquatic vegetation in irrigation canals. Then during the 1990’s, silver, bighead, and black carps escaped from U.S fish farms during floods that washed out their hatcheries and research ponds into the Mississippi River and since then caused kayos. From there their population rose quickly and they began moving north to cooler waters much like in their natural habitat. In fact, they travel at a rate of 80km/year up the Illinois River towards the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal that joins to the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.	Big-head Carp Baby Black Carp Baby Grass Carp Baby Silver Carp Baby	Spread Asian carps spread in numbers. They are very quick to reproduce and out number the other aquatic species around them. In fact, female carps depending on their sizes can carry and lay 100,000 to over 2 million eggs a year that could hatch in a minimum of 3-10 days. They usually lay their eggs in rivers to help keep them a float. Common carps could be found coast to coast in Canada. Although bringing grass and bighead carps to Alberta seems like a huge risk, the carps were know to be sterile and therefore did not establish a population. But even though thought sterile, there isn’t a 100% chance of that. Only a few carps have been found in Canada in lakes like Lake Erie (1985[1 grass], 2000 [1 bighead]), Lake Huron (1989 and 1998 [3 grass]), and the mouth of the Don River, Lake Ontario (2003 [1 grass]) and even a bighead was found in a downtown Toronto fountain in researchers have not yet found any areas where they have established a population yet. Sadly not too long ago, live Asian Carps have been sold in selected stores as a source of ‘fresh fish’ and it was believed that some of the fish either accidentally or intentionally were released into the ‘wild’ causing the random catches that have been found in Canada’s waters. The DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) researched the risk of Carps invading the Great Lakes, and in conclusion came to the Mississippi River or through the market in live carps which is a potential disaster.