spectr17
06-10-2003, 11:31 PM
A giant predator is fished out of Park Dist. lagoon
June 10, 2003
BY GARY WISBY, Chicago Sun-Time Environment Reporter
To the alarm of state conservation officials, the first confirmed Asian bighead carp has been caught in Chicago.
A surprised fisherman pulled the 38-pound fish out of the lagoon in McKinley Park, at Pershing and Damen.
State and federal agencies are spending millions in an effort to keep the dreaded Asian carp from getting into Lake Michigan and then the other Great Lakes.
The McKinley Park lagoon isn't connected to the lake. "But if somebody put it there, they could easily put it in Lake Michigan," said Tom Trudeau, fisheries program administrator for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
"Where else have the carp been put? If they survive and reproduce [in the lake], it neutralizes all the efforts to try and keep them out of the Great Lakes."
Trudeau speculated that the fish was dropped into the McKinley Park lagoon in keeping with the custom, practiced by some Asians, "that for every fish you eat, you release one."
He noted that the City Council last year passed an ordinance banning possession of live Asian carp.
Angler Dan Pena, 42, caught the fish Thursday. Not knowing what it was, he called Henry's Sports & Bait Shop, 3130 S. Canal.
"It looks odd," he told shop owners Fran and Matthew Palmisano. "Bring it in," they said.
Pena, who walks or bicycles to the lagoon from his nearby home, talked a friend with a car into transporting his catch to Henry's, where a DNR biologist identified it.
"My shoulder is still hurting from carrying it," Pena said.
His work as a carpenter and general handyman affords him the opportunity to go fishing at McKinley Park every day, rain or shine. "I'm a true fisherman," he said.
His usual catch is catfish or bass. Sometimes he and his fellow sportsmen fillet what they've caught and have a fish fry on the spot, Pena said.
U.S Fish & Wildlife workers this week are counting Asian carp and round gobies in a 100-mile stretch of waterway from Alsip on the Calumet Sag Channel, along the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal and south to Starved Rock State Park on the Illinois River.
They will look for carp upstream and gobies--making their way to the Mississippi River--downstream.
A $1.6 million electrified barrier was built in the ship canal at Romeoville last year to repel the invaders. Its electrodes are expected to last two or three years.
A permanent $7 million barrier, funded by the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be added to the canal as early as next fall.
The voracious bighead and Asian silver carp, recently described by a conservation official as "an aquatic vacuum cleaner," compete for food with other fish. They are the most populous fish species in some stretches of the Illinois River.
Contributing: Dale Bowman
June 10, 2003
BY GARY WISBY, Chicago Sun-Time Environment Reporter
To the alarm of state conservation officials, the first confirmed Asian bighead carp has been caught in Chicago.
A surprised fisherman pulled the 38-pound fish out of the lagoon in McKinley Park, at Pershing and Damen.
State and federal agencies are spending millions in an effort to keep the dreaded Asian carp from getting into Lake Michigan and then the other Great Lakes.
The McKinley Park lagoon isn't connected to the lake. "But if somebody put it there, they could easily put it in Lake Michigan," said Tom Trudeau, fisheries program administrator for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
"Where else have the carp been put? If they survive and reproduce [in the lake], it neutralizes all the efforts to try and keep them out of the Great Lakes."
Trudeau speculated that the fish was dropped into the McKinley Park lagoon in keeping with the custom, practiced by some Asians, "that for every fish you eat, you release one."
He noted that the City Council last year passed an ordinance banning possession of live Asian carp.
Angler Dan Pena, 42, caught the fish Thursday. Not knowing what it was, he called Henry's Sports & Bait Shop, 3130 S. Canal.
"It looks odd," he told shop owners Fran and Matthew Palmisano. "Bring it in," they said.
Pena, who walks or bicycles to the lagoon from his nearby home, talked a friend with a car into transporting his catch to Henry's, where a DNR biologist identified it.
"My shoulder is still hurting from carrying it," Pena said.
His work as a carpenter and general handyman affords him the opportunity to go fishing at McKinley Park every day, rain or shine. "I'm a true fisherman," he said.
His usual catch is catfish or bass. Sometimes he and his fellow sportsmen fillet what they've caught and have a fish fry on the spot, Pena said.
U.S Fish & Wildlife workers this week are counting Asian carp and round gobies in a 100-mile stretch of waterway from Alsip on the Calumet Sag Channel, along the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal and south to Starved Rock State Park on the Illinois River.
They will look for carp upstream and gobies--making their way to the Mississippi River--downstream.
A $1.6 million electrified barrier was built in the ship canal at Romeoville last year to repel the invaders. Its electrodes are expected to last two or three years.
A permanent $7 million barrier, funded by the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be added to the canal as early as next fall.
The voracious bighead and Asian silver carp, recently described by a conservation official as "an aquatic vacuum cleaner," compete for food with other fish. They are the most populous fish species in some stretches of the Illinois River.
Contributing: Dale Bowman