Asian carp threaten Lake Michigan

If you haven't heard about this one, it's probably low on the totem pole in terms of environmental threats -- but it's just another example of invasive species, a pervasive problem globally. And a real difficult one to control; once the pervasive invasives find a new niche, it's hard to extract them. They tried (and might be still trying) to control the northern snakehead in the Potomac River in my region, but the battle has been lost (though I don't think there's a lot of them in the river yet. Below is a fairly recent status report:

Beginning in April 2004, several fish were captured from the Potomac River in Maryland and Virginia. As yet, it is not known if these fish came from the established population in the Crofton pond. Another specimen was collected in Dogue River in Fairfax County, Virginia. A fish was collected from Massey Creek and in 2005 a breeding female was found in Little Hunting Creek, a tributary of the Potomac, Virginia. Many others have been collected in 2006 and 2007 in the Potomac basin centering around Dogue and Little Hunting creeks in Virginia and from the Anacostia River in Maryland (J. Odenkirk, pers. comm.).

But this isn't about them. It's about the jumping Asian carp in the Illinois and Des Plaines River system.

Scientists fight back on giant Asian carp

The Lake Michigan food chain is under threat from an invasive fish and biologists are working on ways to keep it out of the lake, university scientists say.

A $9 million electric fish barrier keeps Asian carp from migrating between the Mississippi River and the lake and the Army Corps of Engineers just boosted the power, the Milwaukee Journal Gazette reported Wednesday. However, the giant fish are also in the Des Plaines River, which has a history of breaching its banks and flooding into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which provides access into the lake.

The distance between the Des Plaines and the canal is only a few yards in places and Lake Michigan is 20 miles due north.

I grabbed a Google map that shows just how close. The river is the squiggly line north, the canal the straighter line south.

View Larger Map

Here's a YouTube video of the carp:

Wild jumping carp on Illinois River

Isn't it a SHAME that these aren't the sushi delicacy, instead of bluefin tuna?!!