The prospect of a carp invasion alarms environmentalists and people whose livelihoods depend on a strong fishing and tourism economy, from charter boat skippers to those who sell bait and tackle, rent personal watercraft, and operate lakefront restaurants and motels. The Great Lakes fishing industry alone is valued at $7 billion a year.
“I’m afraid they can wipe us out in a hurry,’’ said Jim Conder, a charter boat operator on Michigan’s St. Joseph River, which flows into Lake Michigan. “We need to spend all we can to keep them out.’’
Over the years, parasitic sea lampreys, zebra mussels, and other invasive species have killed trout and birds, left prized salmon and whitefish skinnier, and done other damage to the lakes.
Now, many fear that the despised Asian carp, which can reach 4 feet long and weigh as much as 100 pounds, will wreak havoc, too - not by attacking native fish, but by starving them out by gobbling up plankton.
The carp were imported from Asia to cleanse fish ponds and sewage lagoons in the Deep South but escaped into the Mississippi and have been working their way north since the 1970s.
Much is unknown about what will happen - and how quickly - if they conquer the Great Lakes. But the carp’s ability to take over is evident in places like the Illinois River, where it has caused native fish such as gizzard shad and bigmouth buffalo to go hungry.
They are also apparently spooked by the sound of motors and have a nasty habit of leaping from the water like missiles and colliding with boaters with bone-breaking force.
Steve Munton of Fulton County, Ill., said Asian carp tore his nets, and one jumper knocked his pet Labrador out cold. “They’re nuts,’’ he said.
