Bye Bye Mr. Carp

This time, with knowledge aforethought, they are going to attempt to wipe out an entire native (or rather, non-native) species of Carp.

We're talking genocide here... the elimination of an entire species. They're planing to do it, they're studying how to do it, and, unless someone objects, they're going to put it into action.

Are they going to employ thousands of teenagers, seeking lucrative fish-killing summertime jobs to do the work?

No. There are simply too many of these pesky Carp to kill off, no matter how destructive your average teenager believes themselves to be.

This time Australia is looking with a bright eye to science. Yes, science. Say "Science" with a twang of Madison avenue fervor, or the can do no wrong righteous intonations of the 1950s and you'll approach the attitude that Australia has grabbed ahold of this idea.

The Australians are going to gene-splice those pesky carp into oblivion.

Fortunately they're not intending to bio-engineer a Frankenstein super carp eater -- it seems that they can at least learn something from their past mistakes.

Instead they're going to take a couple of these pesky carp from the river, jimmy up their DNA so that the new pseudo-carp will only have male offspring, and then release them back into the wild.

Problem solved, right?

The computer simulations and controlled laboratory testing has proved that within a couple generations the entire line will just go away, finally dieing of old age and natural causes, reminiscing of the good old days when there used to be girl carp.

Now, let's not get too sympathetic for this breed of carp -- these are the bad boys after all. They were imported from Europe (what, didn't Australia have any interesting species of its own?) and took to the lovely Australia climate like gang-busters. And much like Eliot Ness, these new Euro-carp proceeded to harass, decimate and run roughshod over all off Australia's criminal carp population. Currently the icthian population of the Murry-Darling river system is 85% Euro-carp, with no signs of mellowing out.

Sure, another case of the Australians introducing a new species that's just going to wipe out hundreds of other native species... shouldn't they be allowed to stop it?

Well, no... not really. They should have had the common sense not to introduce it... and I'm all for them removing the species by hand using some sensible "scheme" before the land acclimatizes to the new species; but this is going about it all wrong.

In the short term you're going to have to worry about the period just after the last generation of Euro-carp have died out -- the Murry-Darling river ecosystem will be thrown out of wack with nothing filling the void that the Euro-carp and their predecessors used to occupy. And even if the original species do manage to reproduce like crazy to fill the gap, the ecosystem will then be left with decades of a yoyoing food chain, with first to many fish, and then too many fish predators and food, and back again.

That's just the known risk. If just one... one... of these daughterless carp finds it's way back to Europe, that's it for the entire species. Not just in Australia, but everywhere.

The scientists behind this "cure" have also claimed that there is no chance that the daughterless gene will jump the species boundary. Only the Euro-carp will be effected, they claim. They've tested it in labs, they claim. You've nothing to worry about, they claim. Balderdash. In a couple generations you'll have a nearly 100% male population of carp fanaticly trying to bust their nuts on anything they can get their hands on. Not just with those original fish found in the Murry-Darling river system, but everywhere these carp can reach before they die out...

Folks, as the comic once said, there's nothing you can't get a man to do if you don't append the request with the phrase "and then you meet women."

I'm just worried this applies to Carp as well.

i,jasona

ref: The New Scientist: Gene warfare to be waged on invasive fish