Daily BrewAsian carp could be threatening B.C. waters
Hard on the heels of capturing the dreaded snakehead fish from a Vancouver-area park pond, scientists are warning another foreign finned invader is potentially threatening B.C. waters.
The province's already stressed salmon stocks could be in danger after voracious Asian carp reportedly were sighted in the Fraser River, CTV News reports.
Fishermen have reported seeing the invasive fish species, which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says could prey on salmon larvae and compete for food with indigenous fish, swimming in the Fraser near Lillooet and Lytton, northeast of Vancouver, according to the Vancouver Sun.
Last June, biologists half-drained a pond in Burnaby's Central Park and caught a highly predatory snakehead fish, which originates in Asia and Africa. Luckily the fish, most likely released by someone whose tank could not longer hold the two-foot-long snakehead, appeared to be a loner with no evidence it had spawned.
[Related: Snakehead fish caught after draining of Burnaby, B.C., pond]
The Asian carp, first imported into North America in the 1970s, have infested U.S. waterways for years. The Canadian and U.S. governments are spending millions of dollars to keep them from reaching the Great Lakes.
Last May, Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield announced $17.5 million over five years to bolster defences against the fish, CBC News reported.
But the reported appearance of Asian carp, known for jumping so frenzied they've been shown landing in people's boats, has locals worried in the Fraser.
"I saw one jump out of the river about fifty feet up and land there," John Charliem, who works on the Lytton, B.C. cable ferry, told CTV British Columbia. "It looked like a catfish."
It's not clear how the carp, if that's what they are, ended up in the Fraser.
Flooding caused the fish to escape fish-farm ponds in the U.S., eventually finding their way into the Mississippi River system and heading north.
In Canada, CTV News said, Asian carp were imported for the live fish industry, but have been banned in British Columbia since 2010.
University of British Columbia zoologist cautioned the fish spotted in the Fraser could simply be a larger common carp.
"Those are already established in the Fraser River," said Taylor. "Common carp is not nearly as potentially dangerous as Asian carp in the strict sense. But Blackhead carp, Silver carp, those can grow to large sizes and be very damaging."
Fisheries officials are asking that anyone who catches an Asian carp should hang onto the fish, note where it was caught and contact a DFO office.
(LiveScience image)
