Public officials in Missouri and Kansas have resorted to extreme measures to control the spread of invasive carp, patrolling the Lamine River with an electrified dozer trawl that is geared to stun the carp and more than 3,000 feet of net to catch them, Nebraska Public Media reported.
Their efforts were reportedly a success, netting 43,000 pounds of carp in eight days of fishing.
Silver carp, along with several other carp species native to Asia, have become a big problem in United States waterways, outcompeting native mussels and other native fish for resources such as plankton.
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As a result, different states and municipalities have come up with different creative ways of trying to remove as much of this invasive species as possible. In many places, this has involved encouraging residents to catch and eat as many of the fish as possible.
A campaign is underway to rebrand Asian carp as "copi" in order to make it theoretically more palatable to diners, the same way that the Patagonian toothfish was rebranded as "Chilean sea bass."
Other places have started putting a bounty on the heads of any and all carp, offering residents cash rewards for each one they can remove from the local river.
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One Missouri company, FKF Fisheries, has a plan to render carp into other products, as well, such as bait for catfish anglers and organic fertilizer.
So far, no one solution has been enough to stop the spread of invasive carp, which are admirably hardy and adaptable, even while being a problem for the ecosystems they invade.
"We're talking about a species that's like cancer — it just keeps spreading," Jim Garvey, a zoology professor and the director for Southern Illinois University's Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, told Nebraska Public Media. "And we're trying to control it, but it's in so many different places. And so trying to come up with a sort of a silver bullet has been the challenge for resource managers throughout the U.S."
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