Asian Carp

Environmental Impact

Because Asian Carps are not yet in Canada, researches can only imagine what they would be able to do once here. Most likely, they could potentially eat its way through the Great Lakes ecosystem. They can withstand different environment conditions, eat lots of different foods, and reproduce very quickly. They are able to consume up to 40% of their body weight everyday in vegetation, zooplankton, native mussels, and small fish. They can grow over a meter long and weigh up to 100 pounds meaning that they would not be able to have and species to overpower them. Different kinds of carps make different impacts on the environment. Common and Grass carps are able to do a lot of damage to wetlands and other water habitats by destroying a lot of plant life that is necessary for other native species that depend on it for food, shelter, and reproducing. They only digest half of the plant material they eat and let the rest expel into the water. This causes more algae in the water, makes the water murky, and lowers the oxygen levels. In addition, grass carps sometimes carry parasites and diseases. Some of them are know to be passable and others potentially passable to native fishes. On the other hand, Bighead and Silver carps are filter feeders that eat zooplankton and phytoplankton. They have huge appetite and are a threat to native fishes at the larval and baby phases and native adult fishes. Luckily, black carps are still confined to aquaculture and research centers but if they were let out into the wild they would most likely compete with native species such as birds, fish, and small animals for food. Potentially they could cause a sudden decline in the population of mollusks, with is bad because they are important for keeping the health of water systems. At the moment, there are 102 different species of clams, mussels and snails that are endangered which make black carps a big threat. They too also carry many parasites and bacterial and viral diseases. Researchers think that once introduced to Canada, all species of carps have a high chance of establishing a population with little chance of interbreeding. Native species of the Great Lakes such as yellow perch, walleye, and cisco will all suffer. The carps would inhabit rivers and lakes in every province and even some would be able to make it up to the Territories and Alaska since these fish are known to thrive in the icy cold waters of Russia. All in all, they could throw the ecosystem off balance.