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never won its Thomas on the
Illinois River trying to catch the worst
fish in America Asian carp
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so I was busy out there Fichtner works
it's embarrassed I love an element where
ever I scan them up up they jump in
their nuts
pretty basic problem is no matter how
many get you can't kill them all
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the Asian carp was first brought to
America in the 1960s by a bunch of good
intentioned scientists from the Fish and
Wildlife Department we figured the
fish's vacuum-like bottom-feeding
tendencies would make them good at
cleaning out farm ponds in the Ozarks
which they were unfortunately they were
also really good at reproducing after a
few of them escaped their ponds by a
flooding
they took root in the surrounding
streams and quickly spread through the
entire Mississippi River Basin out
breeding all the native fish eating up
all the food and completely choking
every waterway they could get their eggs
in it's your classic emigrant scare
story just with fish and I guess that's
it everything else lines up even the
name so that was a spot Wow with no
natural predators release none that can
keep up with their Moorman s breeding
rate it's been left to us humans to
devise a way to stop the Asian carp
before they invade all our lakes and
rivers which we've done with our
customary ingenuity and a plum once
you're in this town hosts a redneck
fishing tournament which basically
amounts to everybody bring their boats
out drive them up and down the river and
trying to kill as much ash in cars as
they can which is pretty easy because in
addition to being invasive and not
having any natural predators one of the
Asian carps more obnoxious ticks is that
when motors or any loud noise disturbs
it it jumps out of the water often into
boats and even more often into Lake
people's faces and laughs look wet in
the face
oh man funny but also extremely
dangerous they can knock people off
water skis some of the fish weigh up to
30 or 40 pounds there's ones on record
the size of a ten-year-old so let's get
nailed with a Asian carp and I'm now
covered and it seems like fish semen but
I got it here's what we hate in love at
the same time
love to hate them yellow one come Oh
another day gone great fun guys ready
Gary
that's a spot
like torpedoes there's like no way I
figured out which direction they're
gonna come from this jobs an
ambush and these fish like stink more
than most fish yeah
yeah they live around the boat like the
grossest fish yeah pretty good so far we
got what three and like you got five
minutes is this usual
you could catch an infinite amount of
them if you want it to you guys think
these like this like coal basically
helps like kill them like a few thousand
if you come out here next weekend and
I'll be there soon
while the redneck fishing tourney is a
great way for River Rats and other
drunken Yahoo's to let off steam it does
nothing to curb the Asian carps
explosive growth rate which in the
course of decades allowed them to spread
all the way to the threshold of the
Great Lakes so everybody here hates
these fish the general
scientific consensus is they're
basically like ink bein kudzu and from
here they're gonna get everywhere in
America and in 20 or 30 years they're
gonna be the only fish we have the acute
concern right now is that they're gonna
get into the Great Lakes there's been
DNA found that suggests that some of the
carp might already be in Lake Michigan
which would be disastrous because the
Great Lakes not only house 90% of
America's freshwater and a seven billion
dollar a year fishing industry they
connect to almost every major waterway
in the Northeast the Army Corps of
Engineers and the federal government are
kind of freaking out and I've convened
number of summits put together a lot of
proposals Obama has nominated a carp
czar to take care of them and try to
block them off before they get through
the Chicago waterways into Lake Michigan
and from there the rest of the Great
Lakes it's all a pretty rich hullabaloo
for fish the Army Corps of Engineers has
jurisdiction over the Chicago waterway
system the most likely route of entry
for the Asian carp among the proposals
they've floated for keeping the Asian
carp out of Lake Michigan or an electric
barrier not unlike the invisible fence
used to keep your dog at bay only
underwater and air cannons scare away
the fish also underwater some sort of UV
light sterilization box that kills the
fishes eggs and an 18 billion-dollar
solid barricade that would effectively
disconnect the Great Lakes from the
Mississippi River and take an estimated
25 years to complete which seems like a
lot of time and money to spend on a
bunch of fish
as we've established these are some
particularly lousy fish Asian carp are a
threat to whatever environment they move
into because they take it over they're
not bottom feeders they're filter
feeders so they simply vacuum up
everything that's in their way they
completely suck out the column of life
what happens if you like no actions take
and does does the ecosystem adapt to the
presence the Asian carp in it or will it
actually collapse the ecosystem well I
think those are two different terms for
the same thing a completely foreign
presence that destroys the system we're
dependent upon that would be a form of
evolution and adaptation but it would be
a destruction and ecosystem disaster for
the systems we depend upon do you think
it's possible to remove the carp from
the Mississippi and in all the other
waterways the better and right now I
think it is extraordinarily hard to
eradicate an invasive species once it's
established extraordinary hard is the
damage to the ecosystem has it already
occurred yet well that's occurred I mean
you look at what's happening in terms of
the eradication of native fish in the
Illinois River you know it's like you
don't have a lot of bass fishing
tournaments in the Illinois River right
now
actually aside from the redneck variety
down in bath there's little tournament
fishing of any kind going on in the
Illinois when fishing there is is
necessarily carp centric
we want a commercial fish in Illinois
you're gonna have to deal with the Asian
carp there's no way around it otherwise
you're wasting your time you can't throw
back 50% of what you catch or more maybe
80 to 90% some days you can't throw that
back I got a selling this most guys
money fish cuz he catch the bulk over
probably Dave who this commercial
fishing cop pretty boring yeah it's nice
it's kind of like herding cats more than
anything but you try to keep them as
much boxed in as you can and you'll see
it when the school hits this net it will
blow up I mean literally just blow up a
fish
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Oh Dursley dropped on me mom's hey you
feeling big ones you want to make sure
you take it even because it'll roll
right out of there
better dock your wages again yeah it's
the second fish I like uh-huh
one of the common misnomer is with Asian
carp is that it's a single fish the term
actually refers to four different
species of Asian carp that if each
invaded the Mississippi basin grass carp
the bighead carp a silver carp and the
mysterious black carp the silvers are
the only ones that jump the of
the bunch I mean you could have
something like this and the Great Lakes
and nobody ever know yeah
unless you accidentally snagged him
which I mean look how big that mouth of
me actually stick your arm down his
throat have plenty of room though but
why would you want to these were
probably the Silver's only can the
active bighead actually bring a pretty
good price right now you get about 25
cents a pound they're the ones that
their heads worth as much as anything we
can get a real big one this you know 30
pounders so that their heads really
would come in what's the most you pulled
in by myself I had earlier this spring I
had 10,000 won nine different two days
to get him all I bought myself alone do
you think the cost of carp will come up
just making a more profitable fish if
the right people get in here doing the
right stuff
I like police work but my passion is
fishing it's not the thing to get into
right now but I can see a change if
everything can come together there's an
industry to be had here
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in order for commercial fishing to help
solve the Asian carp crisis it has to
exist in the first place dave was the
sole angler we saw in our stretch of
river that entire morning in order to
sell the fish he caught yes to ice them
down and drive them 100 miles through
the 90 degree heat to a processing plant
on the Mississippi River that's the
closest spot yeah that's thank you got
you you didn't give him
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so this is Dave's load for the morning
this is pretty good gonna hose them down
put some ice on them and we're gonna
drive them to be processed up in
Thompson
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[Applause]
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we did pretty good today I have no
complaints they're still fairly moist
and all right yeah they're good
started sorting the fish just wondering
how they were gonna get out well there's
gonna be like a giant vacuum hose oh
don't like yet here
that's them on the scale
he'll subtract how much the tub ways and
then obviously that's what's left is
fish for their records and for the state
we got a I gotta sign it and I got
Footwear I caught him Illinois River and
I leave them with that they got me in
the computer and today's earnings was
nine hundred and eighty nine dollars and
fifty cents which is pretty decent for
one day's work that's a good day for me
Dave thousand dollar haul definitely
puts the lie to the idea that Asian carp
are an edible garbage fish a
misconception we heard from the mouths
of tipsy rednecks and credible news
sources alike all Asian carp are edible
and in fact three of the carp species
are extremely edible just maybe not
students the Midwest American palate we
did a lot of international marketing on
these fish a lot of places around the
world they're grown and raised as food
for people we're the only country in the
world that doesn't embrace our carp why
do you think that is I think Americans
aren't used to having a bone-in fish
right and we've always had beef and chin
even phone and chicken is sometimes
right India for some people we're kind
of picky eaters right what we're doing
is we're moving the belly cavity out of
the fish to help bring the core
temperature down we'll go into a whole
zone bath from there we go into an ice
bath that's it that's it okay if you
look at the head here yeah this cheek
meat right here it's considered a highly
delicate
highly prized delicacy the bigger this
cheek meat is the more valuable it is
and it's very sweet and flavorful that's
the most prized part of the fish okay is
he as big that the only one you can sell
or the others oh it's got the most
demand right now we can sell we sell an
average of 45 to 50 thousand pounds of
bighead a week in the US on the fresh
market so what do you not feel like you
learn what do you think is gonna happen
but what do you think is gonna happen
with the car let me put it to you this
way you've heard a common carp right you
know carp that was an invasive species
to this North America at one time right
what's happened to that fish it's
everywhere it's everywhere and we don't
consider it a base and you don't concern
any evasive species anymore it's like
same with the horse great
I guess just how long do you think it's
gonna take for an Asian carp to just
become asian-american carp I guess
that's good as people get more used to
it and understanding it and as the
market grows there will be a kind of a
settle down on that even the least
marketable of the Asian carps the silver
the leaping slimy bastard fish that
redneck sand baths dump in filthy
cardboard boxes is loved by some that's
a jumping fish laughter this is a small
one see how beautiful the flesh is you
know nothing wrong with that we're gonna
play into that broth right here onion
garlic wine is very good but we are no
wine today so we use beer yeah so this
is the fish that hit me in the face yeah
don't you want to hit you in the head
you will never know and actually this
slap your face earlier right yeah
basic just like give it any name and eat
it silver thing is a name that we came
up with sorry brain Asian coffee the
only thing that makes sense is to be
able to put the fishermen at work take
this fish out and process VistaVision to
value-added product our government came
up and have the idea with a cup of
engineer to build dams around the great
lake them don't take the fish out of the
water you still will have to deal with
the fish but if you give the problem to
guys like me then we're gonna cook it
learning to love the car may be the
healthiest way for people to adopt their
presidents but it doesn't bring back the
fish they've displaced or undisrupted
ecosystems they've invaded and if the
carp make it into the Great Lakes and
wouldn't stop them from screwing up its
entire food chain and potentially
triggering algae blooms like the one
that made Lake Erie undrinkable so what
do we do
block off the Mississippi from Lake
Michigan and completely the course
of a river in the process it wouldn't be
our first time this is the Chicago River
originally flowed into Lake Michigan but
when they built the canals to connect it
Mississippi River Basin reversed the
flow downstream they had to build a
series of locks to basically to keep
Lake Michigan from emptying out into the
Gulf of Mexico under that bridge is
where the Chicago River naturally began
here to the left of us is the ship and
sanitary canal which was created a
hundred years ago to move water from the
Chicago River out of the Chicago area
because we're so contaminated it was
killing people so that's where we are
today and we have instead of simply
moving some untreated sewage out of
Chicago it's become a highway fan base
of species into the Great Lakes and out
of the Great Lakes in the Mississippi
and the Asian carp is a good indicator
of the problems with status quo it's not
serving the interests of this century or
the people or the ecosystem or the
economy so the whole reason we have to
worry about carp infesting the Great
Lakes in the first place is because 100
years ago Chicago decided to make the
Mississippi River it's toilet this is
actually where we originally with
nature before all the other things with
invasive species and this canal is the
real villain of the carp saga this is
the part that gets lost in the armies 18
billion dollar proposal to dam up the
S&S canal isn't just some maniac
engineers wet dream now it really
doesn't belong there in the first place
removing the canal would not only stop
the Asian carp and keep future invasive
species from passing between the lakes
in the Mississippi it would restore two
distinct ecosystems to their original
bifurcate nature that's worth a few bill
at least isn't it carp or just one
aspect of myriad issues related to the
fact that we've made these canals
unfortunately there were a telegenic
aspect of it it's really easy for the
media to vilify a fish that hits you in
the face and covers you in slime also
really easy to read stories about it and
take videos of it as we have
it's far more tricky to get people
interested in fixing century-old
infrastructure before it allows the
Asian carp to go from a regional
calamity to a continental on especially
when the very word infrastructure is
like a thousand milligram dose of ambien
blown straight into your ear boredom
notwithstanding we need to get started
on this canal things soon before we're
all rolling around in fish guts like
those bozos downriver
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about what
it is like our part
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oh yeah
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