New ways to cut the carp

New ways to cut the carp

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A federal and regional committee is laying out a plan to defend Chicago waterways and the Great Lakes from Asian carp.

Hydroguns that shoot energy waves into water, underwater cameras that can show whether those guns actually killed carp, new barriers and traps for larvae and eggs—these are technologies in the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee’s new arsenal.

Charlie Wooley is deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says the long-term goal is total carp eradication. In a press conference atop a river tour boat, Wooley said, “What we’d like to do, is find chemicals that can control the fish, will actually kill just Asian carp. We could possibly find some way to attract Asian carp into some area where we could capture and kill them.”

All of these anti-carp technologies happen to still be in development. At the same time, officials are contracting with commercial fishermen to catch Asian carp the old fashioned way—with nets.