Asian Invasion
Doomsayers may add something new to their list— an Asian Carp Invasion of the Great Lakes.
Successive waves of invasive species are always accompanied by panic and heavy investment trying to stop them. There is infighting among officials, who sometimes cannot agree on how to fix the problem. This holds true for the Great Lakes Region of the Midwestern U.S. and Canada. The Great Lakes ecosystem and economies are currently threatened by Asian Carp.
If these fish establish themselves throughout the Great Lakes, they may dramatically alter the ecosystems and cost a total of $4-6 billion annually in damages.
Invasive species are almost always introduced to an area by accident, and Asian Carp are no exception. No one can ever pinpoint the exact area of introduction or who did it. These accidental introductions wreck havoc and alter the local landscape. Since the animals are foreign, they have no natural predators. Likewise, their prey is not familiar with them as predators. Strain is put on the ecosystem as the invasive species out-competes other animals for the same food source. There several types of Asian Carp, including silver carp, grass carp, black carp and bighead carp.
Asian Carps are considered to be aquatic vacuum cleaners. They eat only zooplankton (plankton that eat phytoplankton—the plants of the water— which create food from sunlight). The facts surrounding Asian Carp have been distorted in many newspapers and sensationalized. They have the ability to eat up to 20% of their body weight, though many newspapers have falsely reported that they routinely eat 40% of their weight. Another way of understanding the damage they can inflict on an ecosystem is their ability to filter out important resources in the ecosystem.
They are very good at finding and eating zooplankton. This ability takes the food away from the zooplankton’s native predators who die. Most of the zooplankton is eaten, and their original predators die. The food web breaks down. The fishermen that rely on the native species for sustenance and sport also suffer. Everybody loses, except the carp. But it is not that simple.
The Asian Carp have been established in the U.S. since the 1970’s though no one is sure how they arrived. They have been steadily making their way up the Mississippi River for years. There are now in several Chicago Rivers including Calumet Harbor, the Illinois and Michigan Shipping Canal, the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal. These rivers all provide direct access to Lake Michigan, although Lake Michigan empties into these rivers. At the mouth of these rivers and their access points to the lake are locks, which could be closed to prevent the carp from entering Lake Michigan. However, there are some holes in the locks, which may be big enough for some fish to enter. The city of Chicago argues that this would not do much to prevent the carp’s entry, it would instead endanger Chicago’s livelihood.
To close the locks would put the welfare of Chicago at risk. The locks help regulate seasonal flooding. If they were closed, much of downtown Chicago would be flooded, dealing a damaging blow to the economy. The floodwaters would also seep into residential houses. In addition, if the locks were closed it would be difficult to respond to emergencies downtown, it would hurt the tourism economy, and disrupt the shipment of goods down the Chicago River. Closing the locks would also create small dead zones in the river where there would be minimal nutrient and water exchange. The water would quickly de-oxygenate and the fish would die.
However, there is then the inevitable fact that the carp are already established in another Great Lake.
Asian carp have been fished from Lake Erie for years. All the Great Lakes are connected by smaller waterways. It follows that the carp would use these waterways to find their way into Lake Michigan. But this is not the end of the line. Lake Erie has low levels of plankton, so the Carp are not out-competing many fish. In addition Lake Erie used to be an environmental hazard. It caught on fire several times in the past, and has been cleaned up. The lake wasn’t abandoned despite its severe environmental degradation and it rebounded. Thus the Asian Carp threat and their potential damage do not spell the end of times for this region. Yet Michigan, surrounded by all the Great Lakes has the most to lose from the carp invasion and is holding Chicago accountable since the carp are poised to spring into Lake Michigan from the city’s territory.
Michigan, several Canadian provinces, and a couple other U.S. states have joined suit against Chicago, holding it accountable for the carp threat to The Great Lakes ecosystem. Chicago maintains that it should not to be held accountable for the carp problem, since they came from further downstream. Mayor Dailey, in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, said that there needs to be collective action, instead of pinning all of the blame on his city. He maintains that the southern states need to be held accountable and contribute to the cause, since they did not do enough to control the spread of Asian Carp. Yet there is a universal agreement among experts that Southern states would never contribute money to this cause.
In an attempt to prevent the carp from reaching the Lake several electrical barriers have been constructed across the Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal (CSSC). The first barrier was completed in 2002, a second in 2004 and the third is to be completed sometime this year. The electric barrier system in the CSSC reduces the risk of Asian carp migrating into the Great Lakes along the most direct pathway, but other pathways do exist and need to be addressed. The Des Plaines River is a potential by-pass to the electric barrier. Closer to the lake, above the CSSC barriers, the Des Plaines can flood and transfer water and fish into the CSSC.
Traces of carp presence have been found in Southern Lake Michigan, a warning sign that Asian carp could have advanced past the electric barrier that has previously prevented their movement north. Since this finding, the voltage of the barriers has been increased, making it a potentially dangerous situation for boaters who cross the CSSC everyday. The barriers are all being operated with federal funding. The Des Plaines River and Illinois & Michigan Canal have tested positive for silver carp presence, though none have been physically collected. Thankfully, none have been detected in the Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal, though there is the risk that the carp can get into the CSSC from overland flooding from the other two waterways.
Below: This is scale of how large these fish can grow
Furthermore, the Army corps of engineers are erecting a concrete and chain link barrier between the Illinois & Michigan river and the upper Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal to prevent the Asian Carp from escaping into the upper part of the CSSC during the overland flows that occur in the springtime. However, the barrier may not be ready till October of this year. In the meantime, they are controlling the carp population by conducting intensive netting, electro fishing and developing scientific tests which will tell them the exact location and numbers of carp.
Asian Carp can weigh up to 60 pounds and have seriously injured boaters. The fish often jump out of the water and sometimes crash into boaters. If the carp do establish themselves in the Great Lakes, which will take years, a market could and should be cultivated for their meat. Asian immigrants already buy them, but other Americans do not.
Other species have invaded the Great Lakes in the past and are still living in them. Steel head trout invaded Lake Michigan in the 1860’s and have since become an accepted part of the ecosystem. Regardless of what happens, whether the Asian Carp are able to establish themselves in all of the Great Lakes or not, it will be just a matter of time before another species threatens the Great Lakes ecosystem and the magnitude of their effects may even been worse than the damage the Asian carp stand to do.
This was not the first invasion, and it will not be the last.
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