I just had a chat with someone few days ago about why common carps are bad for our ecosystems and our fisheries. He replied that common carps are essential good for lakes/rivers. I asked him what he meant and how they benefits the ecosystem. I also asked him where he got the facts...and he replied from carp anglers.
Carps good for ecosystems?
Started by
Guest_butch_*
, Jul 09 2014 09:39 AM
18 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_gerald_*
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Posted 09 July 2014 - 02:13 PM
I won't say they are "good" but I will say they have been excessively blamed over the past 200 years for problems they did not cause, such as making lakes and rivers "muddy". Excessive turbidity and sediment are mainly from eroded soil from land clearing, agriculture, stream channelization, and development. It's much easier and politically expedient to blame the carp than the real culprits.
#3
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Posted 09 July 2014 - 03:56 PM
I dont know about that. I've found few lakes that is isolated from everything and we still have problems with the carps. Also I have witnessed that after a carp removal, the lakes has improved and less turbidity.
#4
Guest_fundulus_*
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Posted 09 July 2014 - 04:49 PM
Eurasian carps in North America are bad. It's really that simple, if someone says anything else they're either delusional or have room temperature IQ.
#5
Guest_Kanus_*
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Posted 09 July 2014 - 05:18 PM
They can be an asset to the garden ecosystem...
#6
Guest_Uland_*
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#7
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Posted 10 July 2014 - 09:07 PM
It's probably true, although I'm not really familiar with it. Carp tend to root around in the sediment and mobilize it which is rarely good.
#8
Guest_BenCantrell_*
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Posted 10 July 2014 - 09:29 PM
Uland, that site was just a few blocks from my house when I lived in Madison. It was a pretty dramatic change from 2007 to 2009 as they removed the carp.
#9
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Posted 11 July 2014 - 01:47 PM
If the carp were not there, and the habitat wasn't too degraded (by silt and other stressors) to support native suckers, wouldn't they be sediment-feeding and creating turbidity similar to the carp? And I wonder how much of that fine sediment/suspended matter was present on stream beds before Europeans arrived with carp and steel tools. (Granted, some lakes probably had more "suspendable" material, but I doubt the rivers had more than a tiny percent of the load present from the 1800s to present day).
#10
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Posted 11 July 2014 - 04:05 PM
Suckers usually don't actively pull up plants in still water, and most of them prefer flowing waters. But your thought about habitat degradation by European settlement is good. In the South large-scale clearcutting didn't start until after the Civil War when most of the South was mired in a long depression, really until WWII. Especially the southern mountains were untouched up to that point, and then quickly cleared as railroads were extended for natural resource extraction including coal. Today we have that legacy of sedimentation past which will take more time to clear. In Minnesota where Butch is, the clearcutting and systematic plowing of prairie started about 1850 and was generally more thorough than in the South, at least in southern MN from what I understand. Wisconsin had that famous huge forest fire as the Civil War started that set the stage for the widespread degradation of the state that Aldo Leopold grew up with and addressed in his book, "Sand County Almanac". So yeah, it was a whole lot of factors as you go from region to region east of the Mississippi.
#11
Guest_Irate Mormon_*
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Posted 20 July 2014 - 07:41 PM
Eurasian carps in North America are bad. It's really that simple, if someone says anything else they're either delusional or have room temperature IQ.
Room temperature ATM is pretty high, esp. since my A/C has been out all Summer. So someone just might take that as a compliment
#12
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Posted 20 July 2014 - 10:33 PM
An IQ of 88 is good? OK, now you know what I think of you...
#13
Guest_don212_*
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Posted 24 July 2014 - 09:07 PM
as in rice paddys? if americans would eat them.
#14
Guest_mikez_*
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Posted 25 July 2014 - 04:18 PM
Interesting, I was just thinking about that as I fished for carp in the Concord river. We know that before carp were introduced, Thoreau described the river as muddy [I'm quoting from memory so the wording is possibly off, but that was the point.]
Never the less, looking into the murky turbid water and watching the huge plumes of mud kicked up by a school of large carp feeding in shallow water. Swamp gas bubbling up, strings of uprooted plants drifting down stream and clouds of dark brown mud, I just can't believe the river is any where near as healthy as it'd be without them.
They sure is fun to catch though. My 8 year old boy landed one the other day almost as big as his little brother. I find it hard to hate carp at times like that.
Never the less, looking into the murky turbid water and watching the huge plumes of mud kicked up by a school of large carp feeding in shallow water. Swamp gas bubbling up, strings of uprooted plants drifting down stream and clouds of dark brown mud, I just can't believe the river is any where near as healthy as it'd be without them.
They sure is fun to catch though. My 8 year old boy landed one the other day almost as big as his little brother. I find it hard to hate carp at times like that.
#15
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Posted 01 August 2014 - 07:03 AM
of course getting hit in the head by multiple 10 lb jumping carp while boating might change your opinion, in other parts of the world carp are highly prized and respected for their strength
#16
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Posted 01 August 2014 - 10:13 AM
I would think that its only Europe that valued common carps as a sport fish. The rest of the world just don't care.
#17
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Posted 01 August 2014 - 10:31 AM
I have been hit by 10+ pound carp while boating. Let m tell you, I'm glad I was going slow! I see a future I designing carp resistant windshields as I suspect they will be mandated by law soon.
#18
Guest_Skipjack_*
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Posted 01 August 2014 - 11:46 AM
Of course they will be mandated by law soon. Any boat of 9.9 HP will be required to have one.
#19
Guest_butch_*
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Posted 01 August 2014 - 05:21 PM
That said, I once got hit by a jumping common carp two summers during electrofishing on the boat which is kinda odd that a common carp jumped out and hit a person.
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