Bighead Carp

This past June a bighead carp was reeled in near Lake Michigan, and it seems highly likely that it spent just about its entire life in the Great Lakes.

This whopper of a fish, weighing in at 9 kilograms, was reeled in in Lake Calumet on the 22nd of June this year. This was the first Asian carp which was reeled in on the wrong side of the electric barriers placed underwater strategically near Chicago to help prevent this invasive species from moving up the Mississippi River system and make its way into the Great Lakes.

Scientists at the Illinois Aquaculture Center, in conjunction with researchers at the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Fisheries, were analyzing the chemical markers in the inner ear bones of the carp and just released their results this past Thursday.

As fish mature, their bones take in the chemicals from their ambient surroundings, and will contain the unique chemical footprint of where the fish had made its home.

“It is very plausible that this fish originated in the Illinois River and then moved or was transported to Lake Calumet or Lake Michigan during the early portion of its life,” the Illinois Aquaculture center’s director, Jim Garvey commented during a session..

The assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, John Rogner, has said that the results from the tests indicate that the fish may have been put into the Lake by humans.

It has been known that East Asian Buddhists sometimes let fish go as a practice of their religion.

For this reason, the sale of Asian carp has been banned in Ontario and many U.S. States, and their transporting them live across state lines is also prohibited.

The invasive Asian carps seem to have bypassed the electric barrier built to protect the North American Great Lakes from potential ecological disaster.

Bighead and Silver carp DNA has been found in the Calumet River, Des Plaines River and at the confluence of the Calumet Sag Channel and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, federal and state officials announced Friday.

U.S. authorities regularly test for Asian carp DNA in suspended particles floating in river currents in this region, and positive test results have now appeared less than seven miles from Lake Michigan.

The carps are believed to have jumped over the electrical barrier commonly referred to as the “last line of defense” for the Great Lakes.

Authorities are now trying to locate the carps and catch them.

Why are the Asian carps such unwelcomed visitors?

The Asian carps wreck havoc with the native ecosystem by outcompeting local species for food.

They were deliberately brought to North America by catfish farmers to keep farm ponds clean, but managed to escape into the wild during a series of powerful flooding incidents in the 1990s. Since then, they have gradually expanded their range up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

Fifteen-year old Seth Russell was floating down Lake Chicot in Arkansas on an inner tube being towed by a boat when a carp suddenly leaped out of the water and crashed into his face. The impact was severe enough to render the boy unconscious and break his jaw, but the experience must have even worse for the fish because Russell was covered in fish blood and guts after the accident.

The carp in question was a Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix). This fish is not native to the United States; it originates from north and northeast Asia. During the 1970’s Silver carps were deliberately introduced to U.S. waters to control algae growth in aquacultures and municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Specimens soon began to escape into other bodies of water and Silver carps can today be found in the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri rivers and many of their tributaries.

This shows that invasive species doesn’t have to be a direct problem for animals and plants in the area only; some can actually cause direct harm to people as well. The Silver carp has earned the nick-name Flying carp for is propensity to leap from the water when frightened. It can leap 3 meters / 10 feet high in the air and is certainly not something you wish to crash into since it can attain a weight of 18 kg / 40 lbs.