Let Them Eat Carp

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources plans to process tons of fish and donate it to area food banks. The fish: Asian carp, several aggressive, invasive species bent on world domination. They can weigh over 50 pounds and jump 8 feet in the air, knocking over fishermen. They also destroy underwater habitat, vacuum up plankton and algae, crowd out other fish species, and have no natural enemies.

DNR pays commercial fishermen to take Asian carp out of the Illinois River. The result: Asian carp haven’t taken over Lake Michigan yet, and the state has a heap of dead fish, 150 tons in the last year.

Giant Minnows Invade the Great Lakes

They’re minnows. Four-foot-long, hundred-pound minnows. Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) were imported by catfish farmers to clear suspended algae from their fish ponds. Floods in the ’90s allowed the Asians to escape into the Mississippi River basin. Like many Southern migrants, they headed north to Chicago. The invaders are in the Lincoln Park  and Columbus Park lagoons and threaten the Great Lakes.

These fish are vegetarians, so what’s the threat? Asian carp are big and aggressive, and they eat 40 percent of their weight in plankton every day, starving out native species, prior finny immigrants, and shellfish. The mammoth marauding minnows have only one natural predator: you.

The big fish have been pond-raised for food in China and Vietnam for millenia. Chow down and save the Great Lakes.