U.S. seeks a solution to Asian carp invasion
Booming fish numbers threaten America’s Great Lakes, yet in China they are a delicacy in short supply – could the two sides help each other out?
China and the US may be at loggerheads over issues ranging from climate change to human rights, but a little-known partnership between the two could be the key to saving the fragile natural habitat of America's Great Lakes and a US$7 billion-a-year fishing industry.
Freshwater ecosystems in the United States are in peril from a growing population of Asian carp that is threatening other species and polluting waterways, while in China their numbers are dwindling as demand for the fish remains high.
Representatives from the Chinese Freshwater Fishery Institute and other government units met US federal and state authorities, universities and the Nature Conservancy this month to discuss ways to restore the dwindling carp population of the Yangtze River while controlling their numbers in the Mississippi River .
The partnership aimed to share major lessons and best practices on the conservation of large river systems, said Bo Yang, of the Nature Conservancy's Beijing office. "Specifically, [we are working on] the Yangtze and Mississippi river basins, to support integrated river basin management for the benefit of nature and people," Yang said.
Asian carp were introduced to America in the early 1970s when scientists believed the species' bottom-feeding habits would rid polluted US waterways of bacteria and algae.
But, by the time researchers discovered that the carp had only made the pollution worse, the fish had entered the vast Mississippi River system that receives at least one-third of the water that drains into rivers in the US.