Asian Carp: A Bad Sci-Fi Movie Waiting to Happen

By JoshMogerman in News on Sep 29, 2013 3:00PM

A recent presentation at a public meeting about the invasive fish moving through Indiana’s Wabash River has taken things to an ever-weirder new height.
Seriously, every time we look up, the Asian carp thing gets crazier and crazier.

According to Reuben Goforth, an assistant professor of aquatic community ecology at Purdue University, the carp aren’t just adapting to American rivers—they are thriving in unexpected ways:

Goforth said he and his team have discovered the gills are changing on some species of Asian carp in the Wabash, making them stronger and an even greater threat to the river's native species.

Maybe that new and improved fish breathing apparatus is helping them get it on too, because they seem to be spawning an awful lot.

It was thought the fish would spawn at only certain times of the year, but the Purdue team has observed the fish freaking throughout the summer. And in June they noticed a 300-fold increase in Asian carp eggs collected while anglers reported “seeing a 3/4-mile stretch from bank to bank jammed with Asian carp spawning at the same time.”

That is disturbing on so many levels…and as the professor notes:

"Fish are doing things here that they haven't in their native distribution, which frankly scares me," Goforth said.

And that should give us pause in Illinois, where the spawning population of Asian carp has moved almost 100 miles closer to the electric barrier which is the last line of defense in keeping the infestation from reaching Lake Michigan.

It is a big deal as there have been concerns raised about wee-ones being able to sneak past the fish fence and a nearby lake has been labeled an Asian carp 'baby factory.'

If it all sounds oddly familiar…well, it is probably because this is the stuff of bad sci-fi movies. Goforth evokes the classic Jeff Goldblum line in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way,” which has been made even more appropriate by the creepy stuff happening to fish in the Potomac River…

But, for us, this stuff is getting so unbelievable that more tongue-in-cheek flicks like “Species,” “Lake Placid,” and Jon Stewart’s pseudo star turn in “The Faculty” seem to hit closer to home.

The Army Corps of Engineers is due to release a report in the coming months outlining potential solutions to stop the carp advance. It better be good, so we don’t have to contend with the mess in David Duchovney’s not-so-classic, “Evolution.”