Posted on 01/11/2020 6:30:18 AM PST by Kaslin
I get it, with all the impeachment and war with Iran hysteria, why would anyone care to cover the ongoing war against Asian Carp. It’s more likely that most people have never heard of the Asian Carp, nor seen a news story about just how much havoc these invasive fish have wreaked over the years. On those sentiments alone you’re probably wondering why anyone should care about the problem or about millions of taxpayer dollars sent to turn the tides against the Asian Carp?
It’s true, of all the things repeatedly and often moronically pile-driven into our heads by the unoriginal and flat-out negligent “news” media about the important issues of the day, and at a time when presidential candidates purport to be in favor of “kitchen table” issues, a story about a measly $25 million within an already shamefully wasteful and bloated federal budget seems rather uninspiring.
I might’ve thought the same until I did some digging into the Asian Carp issue now seriously referred to as the “War on Carp”. From Iowa to Tennessee, on down to Louisiana, and throughout the Mississippi River Basin, the Asian Carp has decimated local fish populations and severely damaged several river ecosystems. But before you dismiss this as some bleeding heart, eco-crazy, hyper-localized niche issue, let’s put on our economic thinking caps.
Communities throughout the Mississippi River Basin have suffered massive economic losses in commercial fishing, recreation, and tourism. Often these industries are the mainstays of their economies and when those suffer due to an invasive species that reproduces at an alarmingly successful rate, it has a negative ripple effect throughout the region.
Not only do Asian Carp rapidly reproduce, they dominate the consumption of food sources for other species of fish, thereby thinning their populations to critically low levels. This hurts the sport fishing industry which relies on a well-balanced and diverse set of species to attract anglers. But when local guides can’t hook local fish on the lines of their clients, the fishing sportsmen spend their dollars elsewhere. The commercial fishing industry, reliant on the indigenous fish populations to support the economies of their communities also suffers. Hauling in Asian Carp, which can grow to be anywhere from 40 to 100 pounds, isn’t exactly fetching top dollar in fish markets throughout the country and we all know it’s extremely tough to create a segment of the free market when the demand for a resource is relatively absent.
And did I mention these fish pose physical, not just economic, danger to people as well? Imagine a 40-pound, rather ugly-looking, fish jump as high as 10 feet out of the water while you’re motoring at cruising speed down the river. Now imagine that bad boy colliding with your face or worse yet, your spouse or children. Not cool.
Left unchecked and without this drop-in-the-bucket $25 million, coupled with other oppressive regulatory schemes and historically entrenched local economic challenges which constrict growth and it’s easy to see how something like winning the war against the Asian Carp really does matter.
And that’s really the underlying point of the whole debacle, these challenges serve as linchpins and hopefully successful examples of how properly applied political will can help local communities find local solutions.
Not surprisingly, these resilient local communities who’ve previously faced hardships not of their making, are finding solutions. Commercial fishermen have begun harvesting Asian Carp with events like “Carp Blitz” dubbed by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s (TWRA) chief, Frank Fiss. They’ve sold thousands of pounds of carp to university cafeterias and other businesses where culinary wizards create appealing dishes for consumption. What’s more is that many of these dishes are beloved by Millennials who get a tingle about the idea of consuming something with a social cause or positive local impact associated with it. Will anyone explain to them this is a byproduct market forces? Probably not, so we’ve done it here.
But what of this $25 million provided by the federal government to deliver another decisive blow to win the War on Carp? While local authorities and market forces have created new ways to harvest and consume the carp, federal dollars go to extraction and eradication via technologies like bio-acoustic fish fences (BAFFs) which help keep the carp from spreading to new environments, or worse, the Great Lakes.
While little else is being done within the halls of Congress, Majority Leader McConnell, Senator Lamar Alexander (TN), and Representatives David Kustoff (TN-08) and Steve Cohen (TN-09), alongside several others from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), TWRA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should get a shout-out for helping river communities score a much-needed victory in the War on Carp. Hook ‘em, net ‘em, eat ‘em, gone with ‘em!
Ok....when I first read the title I thought it was a war on crap.
Most efforts to eliminate an invasive species fail. Foxes and cats in Australia, wild hogs in Texas, Fire ants and Kudzu in Alabama, Eucalyptus in California, Zebra mussels in the Great Lakes...
Good luck but the best way is to eat as many as you can.
Here I was expecting to read an article about WaPo or NYT.
At least, the story provided a photo of dead fish, which will be useful elsewhere on Free Republic.
This image can also be used for summarizing the many fake news stories floating around the net.
Turtle swimming with the fishes in the swamp?
The Chinese need to replace the protein from all their infected pigs they killed. Sounds like a win-win to me.
On a side note, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was forced to close the uppermost lock and dam on the Mississippi, due to pressure from enviro wackos and concern trolls, due to carp.
This action effectively cut off river travel to boaters, canoeists and kayakers, who live, or launch upstream. Also, it caused transfers and loss of jobs for lock operators, tow boat crews, and much industry upstream.
Biggest problem with this solution was, the carp were already above the dam.
One of the kooks responsible for this government action?
None other than the genius, Amy Klobuchar.
I thought the name was changed to “Silver” carp because “Asian” carp was deemed to be RACIST!!!!!
Harvest the flying carp and turn them into Fish emulsion fertilizer. Sell it cheap to farmers. Sell it to China.
OR fund an initiative to develop a way to produce oil and gas from the carp.
Maybe they can do both at the same time!
Create a new fresh water fishery!
If they can produce fuel and fertilizer from kitchen waste, they can produce it from flying carp!
Turn 'em into cat food. Or fertilizer.
And what is the “decisive blow?”
Has anyone anywhere successfully eradicated an invasive species?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species_in_the_United_States
Nile Crocodile: Several specimens have been recently captured in South Florida, though no signs that the population is reproducing in the wild have been found.
YET!
Could be more problems down in God’s waiting room?
A federal issue?
No, they're here now, and we can call them "Oriental-American carp". /s
You see an invasive species taking over.
I see cat food, high protein chicken feed, hog feed, fertilizer...
...and paging Jethro Tull (Ian Anderson) pelletized fish to feed the salmon in his aquaculture pens!
Federal waterways.
Don’t the silver carp start out as gold fish?
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