The news clip that aired on a television station in Illinois had an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world feel to it.
It showed a fleet of sturdy jon boats running up a river, with fighters armored in battered football helmets and catcher masks and armed with tennis rackets and bats.
As the television camera watched, fin-like torpedoes would suddenly break free from the murky river water and leap into the air to deliver a dope blow to one of the boat crews whose attention had wandered.
For many viewers, this surprising—yet entertaining—visual was their first encounter with a foreign invader that is dramatically altering the piscatorial population of many Midwestern rivers.
The newcomer was the Asian carp, which first came to this country in the 1960s as a guest of aqua farms in Arkansas that had problems with plankton and algae.
The Asian carp was invited because they like to nibble on the aquatic plants that are the bane of commercial fish farms.
How Asian Carps Invaded American River Systems
It was initially thought that the carp was an inexpensive, natural way to control the weed problem. But like many instances where man puts his thumb on nature’s balance, it has turned out to be an ecological disaster since the fish escaped into the river systems. They have been in the Mississippi River since the 1980s.
Now infesting the country’s waterways, the Asian carp comes in four varieties and should not be confused with the common bottom fisher and exotic importer, the European carp.
There are the silver, bighead, black and grass carp and they all have a voracious appetite – plus a strange aversion to the turbulence of passing boat engines.
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Invasive species pose a threat to river-goers and biodiversity
The churning water pushes the carp up to 3 meters high out of the water in a frenzied dance that can lead to collisions with boaters, water skiers and work crews. On some rivers – such as the Illinois – the fish are so thick that boaters have made it a sport to take to the river and compete with the flying fish.
But it’s not the Asian carp’s tendency to get airborne that makes it a threat to the health of the Midwestern river system. Rather, it’s its hunger for plankton and algae — a diet that had earned it the name “filter feeder.”
The Asian carp’s diet causes a crash of zooplankton and phytoplankton, which are important food sources for other young fish. Asian carp scoop up the food needed for other fish species to survive.
The filter feeder population explosion is especially acute in the Illinois River, where an estimated 70% of the biomass in the river is Asian visitor.
The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources are currently battling to stop the carp from ascending the river and accessing the Great Lakes, where they could destroy a $7 billion commercial fishery.
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Locks and dams may discourage carp waterways in the Upper Mississippi
The situation on the nearby Upper Mississippi River does not mirror Illinois, and previous predictions of a massive contagion of Asians have so far proven wrong. As the carp threatens access to the Great Lakes system through the Illinois River, the Mississippi River plague appears to have stopped at Iowa’s southern border.
Roy Bowman, a fishing engineer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, explained that the Mississippi River’s array of locks and dams seem to discourage the arrival of Asian carp.
“Sluice and dam 19 at Keokuk is particularly high and appears to be a barrier to the upstream movement of the Asian carp,” Bowman said. “But how long this will last is difficult to determine. The Des Moines River flows into the Mississippi downstream from the Keokuk Dam, and the Des Moines has a significant number of fish.
Jon Billups, manager of Burlington’s Bluff Harbor Marina, also explained that he has heard few reports of Asian carp in this pool.
But he admits the species is numerous in the Des Moines River.
He added that he has seen videos taken by a marina employee of the fish jumping out of the Des Moines River as a jet ski passes by.
The lack of extensive infestation of Asian carp on the Upper Mississippi is also confirmed by Kirby Marsden of Quality Fisheries in Fort Madison.
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Illinois launches rebranding campaign in an effort to make carp more attractive
Quality Fisheries is the area’s largest fish processor caught by commercial fishermen in Pool 19.
“There just isn’t a commercial market for Asian carp,” explains Marsden. “For starters, they have a bone structure that is very difficult to deal with. When you finally get the bones out, there isn’t much of the fish left. It’s just too much work to handle.”
Marsden adds that there is also a reluctance among the public to consume the fish that has been tarnished with the same bad reputation as the bottom-feeding European carp.
“Very few people want to eat a fish called ‘carp’. Carp may be popular in other countries but not here,” Marsden said. wild caught salmon. It’s just too expensive to process and there’s no market for it.”
The public’s reluctance to fry up a “mess” of Asian carp hasn’t discouraged the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, as it has spent the past two years developing a marketing campaign to make the fish more acceptable.
In June, the Illinois agency unveiled the first step in this approach when it announced that the Asian carp had undergone an identity change.
The fish will now be known as the ‘Copi’.
The name Copi is derived from how abundant the fish are in number and it is hoped to make the fish more acceptable. The first reactions to the name change are positive.
Distributors, primarily in the Chicago area, offer Copi fried, smoked, in burgers, sushi, Thai curries, and more.
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For restaurant owners in Burlington, a carp by any other name is still a carp
The possibility of ordering a Copi burger at a Burlington restaurant seems only in the distant future as local food purveyors are currently reluctant to offer the exotic fish to their customers.
Carlo Falcone of the popular Italian eatery LaTavola has strong opinions about the reconfigured carp.
“It’s just a terrible fish,” he said. “Apparently it tastes pretty good, but it’s lean and next to impossible to serve.
“It’s definitely not the kind of fish we want to offer a customer.”
That view is echoed in the riverside restaurant The Drake, where manager Bryan Atwater explained that the Copi would not be welcome on their menu.
“Whatever you call it, it’s still carp and that’s not the kind of fish we want to offer our customer. There are places around that offer smoked carp, but that’s not what we do.”
Because of the bone structure, the fish is often served ground.
The name change approach is not new when it comes to making a fish more salable.
The Patagonian toothfish is successfully sold as Chilean sea bass, while the Slimehead is now known as orange roughy.
Public acceptance of the Copi and the resulting commercial market could significantly reduce the Asian fish population and hopefully keep the voracious algae feeder trapped under the Keokuk Dam.