Asian carp may have breached an electronic barrier designed to prevent the giant invaders from upsetting the ecosystem in the Great Lakes and jeopardizing a US$7 billion sport fishery, officials said on Friday.
Scientists recently collected 32 DNA samples of Asian carp between the barrier and Lake Michigan in waterways south of Chicago, although the fish have yet to be spotted in the area, said Major General John Peabody of the US Army Corps of Engineers.
If the feared bighead and silver carp have got through the US$9 million barrier, the only remaining obstacle between the carp and Lake Michigan is a navigational lock on the Calumet River.
Some DNA was found as close as 1.6km south of the lock and 12km south of the lake.
Still, federal officials insisted a Great Lakes invasion was not inevitable.
“We’re going to keep throwing everything we possibly can at them to keep them out,” said Cameron Davis, senior Great Lakes adviser to Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
MONSTROUS
Asian carp escaped from Southern fish farms into the Mississippi River during 1990s flooding and have been migrating northward since.
The monstrous creatures can 1.2m long and 45kg. They consume up to 40 percent of their body weight daily in plankton, starving out smaller and less aggressive competitors.
Aside from decimating species prized by anglers and commercial fishers, Asian carp are known to leap from the water at the sound of passing motors and sometimes collide with boaters.
A worst-case scenario envisions them spreading “like a cancer cell,” he said, eventually dominating a fishery already damaged by zebra mussels, sea lamprey and other exotic pests.
In 2002, the Army Corps placed an electronic device on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a man-made waterway south of the city that forms part of a linkage between the Mississippi and Lake Michigan.
NEW DEVICE
A more powerful device went online this year.
Both emit electrical pulses designed to repel the carp or give them a non-lethal jolt.
David Lodge, a University of Notre Dame invasive species expert, confirmed the presence of DNA of bighead and silver carp in the Cal-Sag Channel, between the canal to the Calumet River and in the river itself, which flows into Lake Michigan.
The newer electronic device is scheduled to be deactivated for maintenance early next month. Officials plan to treat a 10km section of the canal with a fish toxin to prevent Asian carp from advancing.
Environmental groups called for tougher action, including closure of all Illinois gateways and locks leading to Lake Michigan.
That would draw opposition from barge companies.
“If we don’t close the locks, we are waving the white flag and allowing one of the greatest ecological tragedies to occur,” said Jennifer Nalbone of Great Lakes United.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS