FEBRUARY
12, 2020
by Travis
Loller and John Flesher
Like a
slow-motion, underwater cattle drive, wildlife officials in a half-dozen
aluminum boats used pulses of electricity and sound on a recent gray morning to
herd schools of Asian carp toward 1,000-foot-long (305 meters) nets.
The
ongoing roundup on wind-rippled Kentucky Lake opens a new front in a 15-year
battle to halt the advance of the invasive carp, which threaten to upend aquatic ecosystems, starve
out native fish and wipe out endangered mussel and snail populations along the
Mississippi River and dozens of tributaries.
State and
federal agencies together have spent roughly $607 million to stop them since
2004, according to data compiled by The Associated Press. Projects in the works
are expected to push the price tag to about $1.5 billion over the next decade.
That's
more than five times the amount predicted in 2007 when a national carp
management plan was crafted, and no end is in sight. Programs aim to reduce
established populations and prevent further spreading, but wildlife officials concede
they may never be able to eradicate the prolific fish.
Much of the
focus has been on limiting their northerly migration and keeping them out of
the Great Lakes, where experts say they could devastate a $7 billion fishing
industry. That effort features an underwater electric barrier near Chicago,
water sampling for carp DNA, subsidies for commercial fishers and experiments
with a mass roundup-type harvest.
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