In the first week of December 2009, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources made an effort to exterminate the population of Asian carp that were headed to Lake Michigan by dumping 2,200 gallons of the toxin Rotenone into a canal outside the lake. However, these efforts proved mostly futile as only one Asian carp was found and nearly 90 tons of other fish were killed. Because of the threat that Asian carp have created, desperate measures to get rid of this species have been considered.
Researchers have realized the problem that Asian carp could pose by being in the Great Lakes. These large fish are what scientists call an invasive species. This means that because they are foreign to our country, they have the potential to badly disrupt the environment. Since Asian carp have no natural predators here, they reproduce freely and thrive off of almost every other creature that lives in freshwater. "They just eat so much," says David Ullrich, executive director of the Great Lakes and St.Lawrence Cities Initiative. "They're like the locusts of the river."
This problem began in the 1970s when Asian carp were introduced into the United States. They were originally brought here by Catfish farmers to eat up excess algae in their ponds, but before long, the carp had escaped into the Mississippi River. Since the invasion of this foreign species, wildlife control workers have been trying to extinguish these fish from our lakes and rivers.
By: Brittany Booth
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