America's Most Hated Fish Are Being Purged By Electric Shocks and Sound

imagine a lake vomiting 30 pound fish torpedoes 10 feet into the air knocking out the guys standing next to you and leaving behind a slimy kiss of carp death these aren't the same carp we saw trump dumping feed on in japan no these are asian carp or what's known as one of the most hated fish in america the u.s fight against the carpocalypse has been an uphill downstream battle and the most recent weapon combines sound and electricity asian carp is actually a catch-all term for four different species the jumping suckers silver carp and the big head carp are the real problems and then there's grass carp and black carp bighead carp can outgrow a small child becoming about five feet tall and weighing up to 110 pounds they're ferocious feeders that eat huge amounts of vegetation and plankton which is why well-intentioned scientists originally brought them from china to arkansas in the 70s as a form of algae cleanup and sewage treatment of course that backfired they escaped and established themselves throughout the mississippi and illinois rivers breeding like crazy with females laying up to one million eggs a year and choking out native fish i was one of the first people to work on big head and silver carp in this country we were complete babes in the woods when this thing started we had no idea about really the wild biology of these fish the fear is that they could migrate north into the great lakes potentially devastating a 7 billion fishing industry the only thing stopping them from entering right now is a giant underwater electric fence across the chicago sanitary and ship canal probably would have carp up there by now if we didn't have that barrier in place but even if only a few carps slipped through this giant doggy collar they could potentially take over other waterways in the northeast since they have no natural predators it's up to humans to stop them from bow fishing tournaments like kentucky's carp madness to an electrified boat called the magna carpa that shocks and captures carp and most recently a chinese harvesting technique that u.s scientists have modified to incorporate underwater speakers and electricity the technique known as unified modified method basically works like an underwater cattle drive fishermen and a bunch of shock boats send electric pulses and sound through the water to startle and herd the invaders they essentially turn an entire body of water into a giant booby trap but fishermen have been using these electrofishing shock boats for a while that's what kentucky department of fish and wildlife demonstrated in a video that went viral last year but the electric current doesn't outright kill the fish it just stuns them to the surface in some cases same goes for loud noises the underwater speakers repeatedly play the sound of an elevator door slamming or boat motors which scares the carp but not the native fish if we were running along killing things we'd be killing native fish the two triggers combined help to corral the carp into a smaller and smaller netted area where they harvested for fertilizer food and bait the method has seen success in china and u.s scientists believe it's one of the most promising solutions we took the basic blocknet idea and together with between the sound and the electrofishing gear i were able to push fish really really easily in about a day and a half we caught almost a quarter 240 000 pounds of fish once they hit the bank they're not my problem anymore and so they're handed over to commercial fishers that take care of them so far it's been pretty successful at clearing large amounts of fish fast we can go in and catch eighty percent eighty-five percent possibly of the fish that are in there you'll end up catching 98.8 percent of the fish in four passes while it's easy for us to hate a giant fish that can take you out in one leap carp are embraced in other cultures especially in china they're really really really important fishes in china they are the fishes that make up most of the aquaculture in china they are the beef and hot dogs of china they want to increase the numbers of fish rather than reduce it and they have shut down most of their commercial fishing in rivers to the point to try to protect these fish but it's going to be hard for the u.s to eat their way through this problem americans don't like to eat you know fish that have bones in them and that's a big problem it's going to be difficult to push this fish on the american consumer sadly harvesting alone will not solve the problem we're probably not going to be able to ever eradicate the fish across the the invaded range unless we go to some kind of molecular control keep the fish from having as much success in reproduction in the meantime we can still try to eat them to beat them two rivers fisheries is one of the big processors and they're shipping a lot of stuff back to china another place up in northern illinois that he's been turning the fish into hot dogs and and sausages and i've eaten a hot dog and it's it's not bad it tastes like a hot dog and it's actually much lower in calories than a regular hot dog you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 2,610,203

Rating: 4.8164458 out of 5

Keywords: most hated fish, Asian carp vice, U.S. War on Asian Carp, asian carp electric shock, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020, electric shock, asian carp fishing, asian carp shotgun shooting, asian carp knockout, asian carp jumping into boat, invasive species, asian carp fishing boat, asian carp cooking, Asian carp jumping, animal news, animals

Id: -A5xoChBtZk

Length: 5min 41sec (341 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/KnifeOrFire]

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/life/2020/08/16/mississippi-hunters-shoot-flying-carp-shotguns/3373655001/

[u/rightmeme421]

I should get my FN SLP