> I no longer buy the company line that common carp are a
> scourge on native fishes.
Mark, you tree-hugging racist anti-environmental eco-Nazi! :-)
Carp will prey on the eggs of other species and, as such, have been implicated in the declines of the razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus) in the Colorado River basin and the white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) in the Columbia River. The carp's penchant for dislodging plants can destroy native fish spawning and nursery areas, while their rooting through mud can increase turbidity and thereby reduce light for photosynthesis. But because carp have been around ever since scientists began collecting data on fish abundance, their total impact on the American fish fauna may never be known.
> Really I think this whole snakehead debacle is a lot of hype.
I look-in-removing snakehead the same way as removing pre-cancerous intestinal polyps -- nipping a potential problem in the bud so that it never becomes a real problem. There's no doubt, though, that the snakeheads have generated an inordinate amount of hype, but this is largely due to TV stations and newspapers bored with terrorism, the war in Iraq, politics, and all the other crap going on in the world. Snakeheads make for for good copy in the modern day era of "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" infotainment.
Chris Scharpf
Baltimore
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