Asian Carp Invasion! What can we do when Invasive Fish Take Over?

Invasive species are a huge problem around the world. Asian Carp are most well known for flying through the air, striking anyone out for a pleasure cruise on the river, but they have completely changed the ecology and ecosystems they have taken over. They have taken over the Mississippi river and they are headed for the Great Lakes and Canadian Waters!

What are we doing to stop them?

In this episode you will hear from the experts about why Asian Carp were brought to the United States, how they escaped, why they are flourishing and what we are doing to limit their spread.

You will hear from Andrew Reeves, Author of the book "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis", Kevin Irons, Assistant Chief of the Fisheries Division from Illinois Department of Natural Resources, who runs the fishing program to keep asian carp away from the Great Lakes, and from Chuck Shea, US ARMY Corps of Engineers who man the underwater electric barricades keeping fish from the Mississippi river basin out of the Great Lakes.

Want to learn More about Asian Carp?

• Check out AsianCarp.us and AsianCarp.ca for up to date information about Asian Carp in the US and Canada respectively.
• Check out Andrew Reeves book "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis".
• Check out I Fish Illinois for information about fishing in Illinois and their Carp Program. 
• Worried about Transporting invasive Species? Check Out Be A Hero, Transport Zero for information on how to make sure you don't accidentally move any invasive species around.
• Click Here for more information about the US Army Corps of Engineers Underwater Barriers.

Want to buy products made with Asian Carp? Check out some products below!

• Check out If You Can't Beat Em Eat Em to find Asian Carp tastings near you!
• Silverfin boneless Asian Carp fish cakes
• Hot Dogs from Two Rivers Fisheries
• Dog Treats from Wilder Harrier
• Dog Food From Root Lab

To learn more about the Aquatic Biosphere Project Click Here.

The Aquatic Bisophere Project
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

David Evans: 0:23

Summer is almost here. I can't wait. It's been a long winter. Let's leave it at that. For many of you, the sound in the background will bring back memories of being out on the water with friends or family, going fishing or skiing or whatever it is you'd like to do. It's something that a lot of people look forward to all year getting back on their boats, getting back out on the water, and really being able to unwind. So it might shock you to learn that Canadian waterways are under threat from an underwater invader. Many of you might have heard of Asian carp and what they've done invading throughout the United States throughout the Mississippi River and all of its tributaries. But you may not be aware that this Asian carp invasion throughout the United States is right on our doorstep. And our way of life on the water in Canada, might be in jeopardy and could change forever. Today on the podcast, we're talking about Asian carp. Why are they a problem? How did they become a problem? And what's being done to keep them out of the Great Lakes? You'll hear from Andrew Reeves, the author of overrun dispatches from the American carp crisis, from Kevin irons, the chief for Illinois Department of Natural Resources and aquatic nuisance species Program Manager. And you'll also hear from Chuck Shea from the US Army Corps of Engineers who's in charge of the giant underwater electric fences that are keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. Water we doing? And how can we do better? your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water to use and the organisms that depend on it for all the global issues that you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? How can we do better? Alright, so I have to be perfectly honest. I've never even seen an Asian carp in real life. But I have learned a lot about them. And the more I learned about them, the more scared I get. You may have seen them in videos online. You'll find videos of people on the Mississippi River armed with baseball bats with spears with bows and arrows with garbage can lids as shields because the fish are jumping out of the water and attacking people almost in their boats. These are silver carp they are one of the four species of invasive Asian carp that have taken over the Mississippi River, and quite frankly, have ruined the livelihoods of a lot of the people who live along the Mississippi shores. There are four species of invasive Asian carp that have taken over the United States waterways. We have grass carp, silver carp, bighead carp, and black carp. And you may be wondering, yes, we do actually have native carp that are native to North America. So we need to make sure that we don't confuse the Asian invasive carp with our native carp species. Now, you may be thinking right now. Okay, Dave. So these fish they fly out of the water. Why should I care? Well, it's not that there's only a couple of fish that are flying out of the water, and you can avoid them. We're talking about 1000s and hundreds of 1000s millions of fish that completely take over systems so that there's no more room for the native species or no more food left for them either. Did I mentioned that these fish can get up to 100 pounds. They're not small fish whatsoever. And they can pack a real punch when they get scared and jump out of the water as part of their Fight or flight response, I had the chance to speak with Andrew Reeves, environmental journalist who wrote the book overrun dispatches from the Asian carp crisis. He's traveled all across the United States, trying to understand this issue from where it started to where it is now, and where it might go in the future. Andrew, can you help shed some light on why this is such a big issue?

Andrew Reeves, Author of "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis": 5:44

When I first became aware of Asian carp, there were an awful lot of news stories, the focus of it often just seemed to be comical videos of fish jumping out of the water, which makes them unique, but it also makes them this really visceral, you know, indicator that something is wrong. When a boat traveling down a river all of a sudden just results in 1000s of pounds of fish flying through the air at 3040 kilometers an hour. And these are big fish. Most of them are usually between like 20 and 30 pounds. It sounds like a high school math equation problem. Do you have a 30 pound fish flying at you at 40 miles per hour is like how badly will your nose be broken? What we saw over the 80s and into the 90s in the early 2000s was that the biomass of silver and big head and grass carp was getting so large that when researchers were testing various sections of the Mississippi River system to get a sense of what was living there, and in what volume, they found that upwards of about 95 or so percent of the total biomass of certain sections of the Mississippi River was Asian carp. You were also finding these instances where the only fish they found in certain surveys they were doing that grew over 12 inches long. Were they getting silver carp.

David Evans: 7:05

So what Andrew is talking about there is biomass. This is the idea that if you took all of the living organisms out of that river, and put them all onto one big scale, how much of the total weight would the Asian carp weigh? Well, if Asian carp are taking up 90% of the entire weight of all living organisms inside of that river, that's a pretty big problem, especially for a creature that was never meant to be there in the first place. So wait, maybe we need to talk about why are they even here in the first place. Asian carp have been here for a few decades now. We're gonna travel back in time a little bit to understand what the mindset was that how does even bring Asian carp to the United States to help address environmental problems before they ballooned out of control and became an environmental problem themselves.

Andrew Reeves, Author of "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis": 8:03

In the early 1960s American resource managers that people who ran hydroelectric facilities, golf courses or irrigation canals for citrus groves in Florida or California, they all had this very common problem. And it was with aquatic weeds that were had been brought over mostly in the 19th century for like horticulture and had basically exploded in numbers in density in irrigation canals, golf course ponds, the cooling tanks of hydroelectric reservoirs. And in a nutshell, they had clogged these spaces up so much so that resource managers needed to find a way to be able to keep those numbers in control. And so they turned towards science. And the science at the time was really suggesting that the solution to this problem was chemical pesticides. And so what I ended up finding was a big part of the reason why people a brace This was because it was very effective. But we didn't really have a very clear understanding of the ways in which these chemical pesticides were impacting the environment and in various species in humans as well, until Rachel Carson came along and published Silent Spring, which really changed our understanding of how the ways that we behave, and the ways that we treat resources in the world around us how they full circle come back and affect us and every other species we share this nice basis with.

David Evans: 9:30

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, was a kind of watershed moment in the environmental sector. The book argued that pesticides could actually cause some really devastating issues in the environment, and that they didn't always just focus on the species that was targeting, but could affect other species and even humans and ecosystems as a whole, really negatively. It also accused chemical industries of spreading disinformation and public officials of just accepting the marketing and not checking the actual science. The book was the start of a movement to stop using pesticides to just solve all of our problems and start looking for innovative ways that we could affect our environment. By using other means different management tactics and not just always resorting to using a pesticide. To solve each problem, and lead to nationwide bans of DDT for agricultural uses, and it really sparked the environmental movement that led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. But not only that, it also was the inspiration behind the idea of bringing Asian carp to the United States as a way to use a fish instead of a pesticide to deal with an invasive plant.

Andrew Reeves, Author of "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis": 10:51

At this time, when people were thinking about her book, there was a recommendation from a man who worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO. So there's a fish that is been cultured in China in its native range. It's called grass carp. It has such an appetite for aquatic weeds, that this seems like it's actually the perfect kind of solution that Rachel Carson was discussing. It is a biological, a natural alternative to spraying pesticides before you simply bring this fish over and release it into natural waterways. Though, spend some time on this, think about it, try and evaluate the impact that it might have in natural waterways if it is able to escape and make it into local open waterways. Unfortunately, the Americans determined that in that month that the risks were minimal, you know, it was much warmer in Arkansas than it was in northern China in their native range. So there was really in their mind, no problem in bringing these fish over. And so they did between the early 1960s and the early 1970s. The fish grew in such huge numbers and in such popularity, that by having access to local waterways, and with our help in transporting them and trucks, we proceeded to move these fish from their central point in Arkansas, within a decade to 32 of the 48 states in the United States. But it was early in the 1970s that the success or so we defined it with grass carp led to the introduction of two very closely related species in silver and big heads, who were brought over to be able to help catfish farmers, in order to be able to help control algal blooms that were exploding in catfish ponds. But it didn't work out in catfish ponds, and then we thought, hey, maybe we can use these fish to be able to help clean up the sewage lagoons with wastewater treatment plants.

David Evans: 12:45

In 1972, the United States Congress passed the Clean Water Act. And the Clean Water Act is one of the Keystone pieces of environmental legislation in the United States that stops pollutants from being dumped in waterways. It's really a way of protecting the drinking water sources from any types of pollutants. So we can make sure that everyone stays healthy, and doesn't get sick from a glass of water. Now, one of the main targets of the Clean Water Act when it was first enacted, was wastewater treatment systems. Now a lot of small counties in the United States were unable to really treat their wastewater, a lot of the times they were just straining out any of the solids and dumping the rest into the nearest river or body of water. Now, this is going to lead to a lot of issues if it wasn't going to be cleaned up. Now, wastewater treatment plants that really treat all of the gross stuff that's ends up in our sewers, are really expensive. But you know, what's really not that expensive, bringing in a couple Asian carp species that might be able to help you out.

Andrew Reeves, Author of "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis": 13:54

One of the things that was suggested to them by none other than the Environmental Protection Agency of all places, was that that there was silver and bighead who had also been cultured in their native range in China, who are these incredible filter feeders that will swim through the water column, and just suck up huge amounts of organic material. Could we stock these retention ponds with silver and big head, they would eat up all of the human sewage, the water would be then made clean enough that you could be released into local waterways without killing species that were growing inside. Someone then had the idea if you could sell those fish for human consumption, small counties could actually make a profit on these fish raised on nothing but human waste. Despite being filter feeders were actually surprisingly healthy. They were low in mercury and other contaminants, basically a win win. But the reason why that didn't happen, aside from the fact that there wasn't much interesting eating fish that were raised on human poop, was the fact that it was around that same time in the early 1980s, that there was this sea change in Washington, after Ronald Reagan was elected to basically do away with environmental regulation, cut the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. And you can just imagine a bureaucrat in Washington looking at their budget and saying, I'm sorry, we're spending $20,000 To be able to determine whether fish reared on human sewage can help clean up wastewater ponds. Like why would we do that? And so they they slashed the budget. I spoke with, again, this man, Scott Henderson who led this work. And he told me that, you know, they very responsibly shut down the project and destroyed all of the fish that they were using. But what he suspects and what I suspect is true as well, is that there were in that time in Arkansas, many people who were producing fish in facilities like fish farms, because there was such hype about the potential to use silver bighead carp in wastewater treatment, that there were these entrepreneurs essentially, who thought if this is right, everyone is going to want these fish, they've got to buy them from somewhere, if we get ahead of this, they can buy them from us. But when the word came down from Washington that there was no longer any interest in using these fish. This suspicion, which I have not was not able to find written down anywhere, because people tend not to write down the illegal things that they do is that the easiest way to get rid of these fish was simply to open up your sluice gates and just let the fish run into local waterways where they were no longer your problem. And from there, with open access to the Mississippi River, which is basically the superhighway from Minnesota all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, they were able to spread with very little standing in their way. And here we are.

David Evans: 16:48

It's pretty crazy to imagine that these fish that were released somehow, because they were potentially going to be used to clean up human waste in wastewater treatment facilities have now taken over the waterways of the United States, the Mississippi River, and are taking up up to 90% of the total weight of all things that are alive in those river systems. Now just give that a minute to sink in. This hasn't taken very long and they've just exploded in numbers. It's gotten to a point where people really need to think twice about whether or not they even want to go out for a boat ride. People have died because of being hit overboard by Asian carp, or just being hit by such a huge carp at such a high velocity. There's no coming back. It's also really affected local fisheries. There used to be a huge inland fishery along the Mississippi River. And now finding those native species are a lot more difficult, because they're being out competed by Asian carp. It's really a cautionary tale, because these carp were brought here for such noble purposes to help clean up a problem. But sadly, they became a problem in their own right. And now we're left cleaning up this huge mess. Now, as carp expand their range throughout the Mississippi, they start to go into the smaller tributary rivers, the rivers that come off and feed into the Mississippi. And there's one river in particular, that's of special concern for those who live around the Great Lakes region. Because this river, the Illinois River, passes right through the city of Chicago, but starts in Lake Michigan. Now, if carp were able to get into Lake Michigan, they could get into all over the Great Lakes. And if Asian carp were able to get into the Great Lakes, in numbers enough so that they could reproduce, then this problem just expands across the continent on a huge scale in impacts the United States and Canada, and potentially cost billions of dollars of lost revenue from recreation and from fisheries within the Great Lakes. So the question comes up, what are we doing to make sure that Asian carp and don't get into the Great Lakes? to address that question, there's two strategies that are really being employed. And luckily enough, I have two guests that are perfect to talk to you about this. Kevin irons is the Assistant fisheries chief for Illinois Department of Natural Resources. And he's also the aquatic nuisance species Program Manager. So he knows a thing or two about how to deal with Asian cavevi

Kevin Irons, Illinois Department of Natural Resources: 19:30

So the two goals are one prevent a spread and these new systems are being hidden silvercar are not present. And then to can we reduce the impacts to our native fish, where they are very present. Currently in the upper Illinois River as it gets closer to Lake Michigan. There's not at large commercial fishing. So we have a team of 10 commercial fishermen that work for our agency, and we fish from February through December. We took 1.3 million pounds out last year, even with the COVID protocols and all the challenges that brought we've had over 1.5 million pounds a year before. We have seen changes in the densities of fish at that leading edge drop almost 97% from sustained harvest in those upper pools of the Illinois River and more and more evidence is telling us that If we can go farther down in the Promote harvest, basically increasing mortality of those fish farther down on a river, we can do even better. So we're now working with commercial fishermen. Trying to figure out how do we get more of these fish out? Because we're taking a million pounds out, they're taking three to 10 million pounds out. So can we double triple their productivity for our management benefit? And we think Yes, we can. They grew up taking advantage of the Yangtze River in China, which is 4000 miles long. Now, the river like all other rivers have been highly altered. dams have been put in Asian carp are having a problem reproducing, they can't get to all places where their life stages have to get. So we have a very unique and very healthy relationship with some Chinese researchers. They're trying to support a vibrant fishery, they don't understand the challenge of too many fish doesn't make any sense to them. Why is this a problem? If you've had Asian carp to eat, and it's done, right? These things are delicious, because the plankton they have a delicious white flaky meat, they're bony. At the same time, the Chinese are watching us, we can look back at them and say, why don't you have a current problem there is because of sustained high levels of harvests over a long period of time, they do use things like locks and dams. And let's call it a deterrent, right, we've learned how to fish these fish better talk to their fishermen. And I don't speak the language. But you get two fishermen in a room and someone's got to tell a story we've learned enough to figure out they use a unified method, they'll fish a lake catch over 80 90% of all the fish and like we've been able to do that here. And we can catch over 80% of Asian carp in much smaller bodies of water, we've been able to deploy that and use it in places where we're more efficient at harvest is one of our strategies to help protect and prevent their spread. So fishing has been identified as something that we can target these big fish and be very effective. Because these are the largest fish out there in the water, they grow very quickly. We don't have many of these other large fish out there, we can use large stains and sort fish. You know, if you bring him to the beach, and they're all alive, you give you good, good fish and bad fish.

David Evans: 22:40

Kevin and his team are working really hard. And he explained it kind of like mowing the lawn. You can't stop the grass from growing, but you can definitely keep it at bay and keep it under control by just continuing to mow. And that's what they're doing with this continued sustained effort with their fishing and harvest of these Asian carp. Now I mentioned that there was another guest as well. And they're doing a different approach to controlling the spread of Asian carp into the Great Lakes. If you can imagine Kevin and his team of commercial fishermen as the offensive line on the football team. Well, then Chuck Shea and his team from the US Army Corps of Engineers would be the defensive line out there protecting the back end and making sure no carp were able to get in at all. Can you fill us in check on what your team is doing to make sure that no carp get into the Great Lakes?

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers: 23:34

Oh, sure. My name is Chuck Shea. And I am a project manager with the Chicago district of the US Army Corps of Engineers. I've worked on our Chicago sanitary and ship canal barriers that entire time. Here on the Chicago area we sit in a very unique place where there's the only continuous waterway connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, specifically the Illinois River system, and Lake Michigan, the river and the lake was connected in a way that Mother Nature never originally intended. And that connection is a man made one called the Chicago sanitary and ship canal. And so there's the possibility that fish in the lake can move down into the river system we're fishing the river system could move up into the lakes. Our first barrier was actually started before the Asian carp were as well known of an issue it became much more of a priority and got more focus, more funding etc. As the Asian carp issue grew and grew. That's why we have a barrier system in the Chicago sanitary and ship canal. There is a stretch of that canal, where there are no other waterways coming in and out of the canal. We have about a 10 to 15 mile stretch where it's just like a chute. That's a pinch point where if something a boat or a fish is going to make it from Lake Michigan down to the Illinois River system or vice versa, they have to swim through that point.

David Evans: 24:55

So you're probably wondering, how do you make a barrier system to stop a fish from going through a waterway, but still allow boats to go through still allow everything that would normally happen on a river to still go on? Well, they came up with a really crazy idea. I think it's so cool.

Chuck Shea, US Army Corps of Engineers: 25:16

The way we've done that is through this electric barrier system. The electric barrier was chosen for three reasons really, first of all, that it was a proven technology albeit on a much smaller scale. People have been using these types of electrical barriers in smaller waterways, streams and things like that to stop the movement of fish. And um, secondly, it's not fatal to the fish, that's a good thing, because we don't want to kill more desirable species of fish that might be in the area. And we don't want to create an ongoing permanent fish kill. And third, and perhaps most importantly, when you have this type of technology, it doesn't interfere with the flow of water, or the movement of vessels in the canal. And by using this type of technology, which isn't a physical barrier, the canal was able to stay open, what are the barriers actually do and how did the barriers work? Oh, we have a steel bars sitting on concrete supports on the bottom of the canal. Those steel bars are connected by electrical cabling to an electrical generating system on the shore of the canal, the electricity that goes under water is actually not just continuous alternating current electricity like you would get from plugging into the outlets at your home. It's direct current electricity that is posted into the waterway. This is done because the direct current is less damaging to fish and less likely to have lethal effects on the fish. And also, because the rapid pulsing that we can do with the direct current is shown to have a better deterrence effect on fish. And so there is a bunch of expensive electrical equipment on land that the electrical engineers spent a lot of time perfecting how to how to rapidly pulse this electricity on and off the barriers pulse 34 times each second, we're operating now 2.3 millisecond pulse duration. So this this electricity is very, very rapidly being turned on and off. These rapid pulses emanate out into the waterway and create a pulsing electrical field in the water itself, the fish, they can feel this electrical field, they don't like to feel like the electrical field. As you can imagine, when the electrical peak is high enough, there is actually a physical effect where the fish can actually be immobilized. So if they were to push through to the highest peaks of the electrical field, they would most fish would be immobilized. And this is the principle that's behind electro fishing, you can mobilize fish and they will float to the surface. And this is the way sometimes people do fish surveys. But we've basically created a permanent stationary electrical field in the water that the fish don't want to swim through. Some people will compare it to like an invisible fence that people put up for something like a like a dog. Now, it doesn't really work quite the same way. But it has a similar effect that as they approach they get a shock and they want to stay away from that area.

David Evans: 27:48

This electrical barrier system has been extremely effective in stopping fish from going from one side of it to the other. They've done a bunch of different experiments where they'll actually take fish from upstream, they'll put a little tracker in it, and they'll put it downstream. And they'll be able to follow that tracker and track that individual fish to see it as it approaches the barrier, and then tries to figure out what it's going to do because it wants to keep going. But it just ends up turning around eventually and swimming back the other way. Because it just can't deal with the electricity in the water. There's only been two cases of fish somehow getting through the barrier that they've known about. And this is an over 700 experiments that they've run. In both cases, these fish got to the other side of the barrier, they didn't have any burn marks on them. And they were all dead. And they were never tracked even near the barrier before they were found. So it's pretty unclear what actually happened. Maybe they were released upstream by a human or they were brought up there by a pelican. It's hard to tell. But really, these barriers are being very, very effective. And they're actually planning new barriers. And these new barriers are going to involve sound playing underwater sound to scare the way the fish using bubble screens potentially, and flashing strobe lights underwater, basically making a really awesome underwater rave. And I guess the carpet is not down for that kind of a scene. There's also monitoring being done between the barriers and like Michigan, just to double check that nothing is getting through that shouldn't be getting through. So by this point, you're probably thinking, alright, let's get to the point. Do we have Asian carp in our Great Lakes. Unfortunately, we have found Asian carp within the Great Lakes, but mostly it's on one off scenarios. There have been a couple of big head carp that have been caught in Lake Erie and also in Lake Ontario, but they don't seem to be reproducing. These are likely fish that were released somehow. Maybe they escaped from a catfish pond. And they were originally brought there unknowing that they were a big head carp or maybe they were released as part of a religious ceremony or something to that effect. The good news is that they don't seem to be reproducing so they're not in high enough numbers. The bad news is there is some evidence that grass carp may be breeding within Lake Erie, so it might be too late already. There's still a lot of work to be done to understand the true impacts that this might have and how we can prevent any further spread. And hopefully these reports are just one offs, like the big head carp reports that I mentioned earlier. To finish off this episode, I'll throw it back to Andrew Reeves to kind of sum up where we are with Asian carp, and how we're dealing with this as a continent.

Andrew Reeves, Author of "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis": 30:37

I remember hearing these stories about how fearful people were that if Asian carp became established in the Great Lakes, to challenges that it would pose to everything from wetlands around their cottages, to their access, if it was a cottages on an island, for example, and you had to take a boat there, or you're going to risk a concussion or a broken nose in order to be able to get to the family cottage, which is only accessible by by boat. And these are real, real concerns they were having. But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking you should talk to people in Louisiana and hear their stories, when they have to tell me the ways that they've had to change their social and their cultural habits, simply because these fish are there. And that's the concern that they have. I was wanting to talk to the people in Ontario, anytime someone would would raise those legitimate concerns to me to say, Well, yeah, that's that's the experience of many, many, many people in the southern United States. But we want their help to help us to have the avoid that same fate. But what are we doing for them? What what help are we providing them so that this doesn't have to continue to be their new way of life that they can go back to enjoying what you are now realizing is at risk for you? And those are some of the things that I really wanted to try and highlight in the book because I myself had come at it initially from a Great Lakes perspective before I realized that yeah, this is just one part of this larger geographic story. And we ignore the other part of it at our peril. bringing these fish over like an example of fulfilling Karstens greatest desires, or are we living out her worst nightmare when it comes to Asian carp? And it's not really for me to answer but I think Asian carp in many respects, especially grass carp, can really sort of problematize our thinking about what it means to make these kinds of interventions in nature and how black and white some of these issues can be.

David Evans: 32:37

Thanks for tuning into today's episode about Asian carp. There are so many other sides to the story that we didn't even have time to get to what the harvesting looks like trying to create an Asian carp harvesting industry and market place and what people are trying to make with Asian carp get ready for some Asian carp tacos and hotdogs. Yum. I'll put links in the show notes about all of these different companies that are starting to create products using Asian carp. Now, you should probably check out because they're very cool. I just like to thank Andrew Reeves, Kevin irons, and Chuck Shea for spending the time to chat with me about this amazing topic. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast because we will be releasing the full deep dive interviews with Andrew, Kevin and Chuck later this week. I'm so excited that I had the chance to speak with all of them because they all brought such different perspectives, but all working towards the same goal of how do we prevent further spread of these invasive species, and how can we deal with their current problem? Thanks again, for all of that help, guys. If you want to help with the Asian carp crisis, you can do so if you live in the Great Lakes area by reporting any fish that seems a little bit strange. Kevin describes bighead and silver carp as silvery large fish that look like they have their head on upside down. I think it's a pretty good description. I'll put links in the show notes about different websites where you can learn more about this topic. And where you can actually report potential Asian carp the might have found to local authorities so that they can take them for investigation. One thing that we can all do to prevent the spread of invasive species, especially aquatic invasive species, is Be really careful with when we move between different water bodies. So if you are moving a boat, make sure that your boat is drained and dry and doesn't have any stowaways onboard. So no muscles, no pieces of plant material, no fish and alive well and no bait that goes between different lakes. Please don't release any fish into any water body. If it's not originally from there. That means I'm looking at you goldfish. I'm looking at you minnows for fishing. All of these types of fish can really be destructive if they're released, unable to breathe out of control. So please don't bring anything to where it's not supposed to be. And hopefully we will have any more crisises on our hands. Recently, it was discovered that moss balls used in aquariums across western Canada by aquarium hobbyists had actually been hiding a little secret stowaway along with them. Zebra mussels were being brought in and were being sold at pet stores in these moss balls. So these are Really examples of ways that we can introduce new species unwittingly. And we have to be really careful. So if you have moss balls in your aquarium, please let Your Local Conservation Officer know. I'm the host and producer, David Evans. And I just like to thank the rest of the team from the aquatic biosphere project, specifically to Paula Polman, Sophie Cervera, and Anna Bettini. Thanks for all of your help. To learn more about the aquatic biosphere project and what we're doing here in Alberta telling the story of water. Check us out at aquatic biosphere.ca. And if you have any questions or comments about the show, we'd love to hear them. Email us at conservation at aquatic biosphere.org. Please don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a review. It really helps us out Thanks and it' been a splash