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.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS