Write An Essay On Asian Carp

The Asian carp is a nonnative species that was introduced to America in the early 1970s. They are very large and silver in color, and can weigh more than fifty pounds, making them some of the largest fish n most rivers. They eat tiny food particles, like algae and plant and animal plankton, and can jump high out of the water. These fish were imported to “. . . improve water quality by removing algae from aquaculture ponds in the southern U.S.”. This would have been successful, had there not been large floods near the aquaculture ponds, allowing the carp to move into the Mississippi river. Asian carp can spawn multiple times in a year and the females can produce up to a million eggs per year, beginning around four years old. The fish have become extremely invasive, due to the climate, which is similar in latitude to their original habitats in eastern Asia. The seasonal change in water temperature does not affect them, which allows them to reproduce year round. The Asian carp can travel large distances, and because of this, they also have begun to travel towards the Great Lakes.
These animals, if they begin to thrive in the Great Lakes, may ravage fisheries valued at $7 billion per year. Also, some boaters …show more content…
. . there are opportunities to prevent Asian carp from moving into new watersheds.” Currently, the Asian carp are being kept from migrating to Lake Michigan by using an electrical barrier system to repel the fish. However, this is a temporary fix, and scientists from the Great Lakes Commission are considering separating the watersheds between the lakes. The fish also are traveling through the Grand Lake St. Mary’s and the Erie Canal. These waterways will be monitored by using environmental DNA samples to know the population of the carp. The samples are taken from the water to view what fish have left behind to discover what fish are living in the