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Monster Fish Breach Electric Barrier, Heading for Great Lakes

By: Associated Press | Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:42:00 AMLast updated: Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:42:00 AM
TRAVERSE CITY, MI - A monster is loose. It eats 40 times its body weight per day, can grow up to 4 feet long, weighs up to 100 pounds and is known to launch itself out of the water at high velocity like a missile, frequently striking boaters and PWC operators who happen to be passing by.

Photo by: Steve Morse/University of MissouriNo Pictures, Please -- Silver carp have the ability to jump high into the air and often hit boaters on the Missouri River. These fish were filmed in action as they seemingly mounted an attack on University of Missouri television producer Kent Faddis, filming them from aboard a U.S. Geological Survey research boat.
This hungry invasive species -- the Asian carp -- is believed to have breached a shock-producing electric barrier designed to prevent the giant invader from upsetting the ecosystem in the Great Lakes and jeopardizing a $7 billion sport fishery, officials said.

Scientists recently collected 32 DNA samples of Asian carp between the barrier and Lake Michigan in waterways south of Chicago, although the fish have yet to be spotted in the area, said Maj. Gen. John Peabody of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

If the feared bighead and silver carp have made it through the $9 million barrier, the only remaining obstacle between the carp and Lake Michigan is a navigational lock on the Calumet River.

Still, federal officials insisted, a Great Lakes invasion is not inevitable.

“We’re going to keep throwing everything we possibly can at them to keep them out,” said Cameron Davis, senior Great Lakes adviser to Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Asian carp escaped from Southern fish farms into the Mississippi River during 1990s flooding and have been migrating northward ever since. Aside from decimating species prized by anglers and commercial fishermen, Asian carp are known to leap from the water at the sound of passing motors and sometimes collide with boaters.

It is not known how the carp would fare in the chilly Great Lakes, which are different ecosystems from rivers, Davis said. A worst-case scenario envisions them spreading “like a cancer cell,” he said.
David Lodge, a University of Notre Dame invasive species expert, confirmed the presence of DNA of bighead and silver carp in the Cal-Sag Channel. Officials plan to treat a 6-mile section of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal with a fish toxin called rotenone to prevent Asian carp from advancing.


This article first appeared in the December 2009 issue of The Log Newspaper. All or parts of the information contained in this article might be outdated.

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