List: bighead carp a danger
By Tony Graf
tgraf@stmedianetwork.com
Mar 26, 2011 04:52PM
The bighead carp has been added to the federal injurious wildlife list — another step taken to protect Lake Michigan and other American aquatic ecosystems from Asian carp.
The addition was made on Tuesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to a news release from the service’s Midwest Region Office in Minnesota.
“If bighead carp enter the Great Lakes and become established, they potentially threaten the 1.5 million jobs and $62 billion in wages connected to the Great Lakes,” the office said.
With the new listing, it is illegal to import or to transport live bighead carp, including viable eggs or hybrids of the species, across state lines, except by permit for zoological, educational, medical or scientific purposes, the office said.
Bighead and silver carp, both Asian species, have migrated up the Mississippi River and its tributaries for decades.
They have advanced to within about 25 miles of Lake Michigan, and DNA evidence suggests that at least some might have passed through an electronic barrier on the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal, The Associated Press reported in December.
History of problem
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency includes a brief history of the issue on its website, www.epa.gov.
“Two species of Asian carp — the bighead and silver — were imported by catfish farmers in the 1970s to remove algae and suspended matter out of their ponds,” the website states. “During large floods in the early 1990s, many of the catfish farm ponds overflowed their banks, and the Asian carp were released into local waterways in the Mississippi River basin.”
“The carp have steadily made their way northward up the Mississippi, becoming the most abundant species in some areas of the river,” the website states.
The Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal connects the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes via the Illinois River.
Thus, the canal has become a battleground area to stop the carp, and Will County towns such as Lockport and Romeoville have been the sites of such efforts.
An interagency task force is targeting bighead and silver carp. The task force — the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee — includes the Fish and Wildlife Service and several federal, state and local agencies, including the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
In 2007, the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the black carp, silver carp and largescale silver carp as injurious wildlife.
On Tuesday, the bighead carp was added to the list when the agency published a final rule in the Federal Register. The rule codifies the Asian Carp Prevention and Control Act, which was signed into law Dec. 14 by President Obama.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.