A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
Why Arkansas wants more Americans to eat invasive carp
As the Natural State works to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes at all costs, can it convince consumers that these fish are delicious? In collaboration with Reasons to be Cheerful.
Ethan Chism and Cody Jordan, two invasive carp specialists with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, catch a fish from their net. Credit: Lucas Dufalla, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
By Phillip Powell, Arkansas Times and Lucas Dufalla, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Since their introduction into the Mississippi River Basin by accident in the 1970s, invasive Asian carp have grown to pose one of the greatest economic and ecological challenges facing the watershed. The fish have become a real headache for policymakers due to their rapid reproduction rate and voracious diet, which enable them to outcompete the river’s native aquatic species.
Over the years, goals for controlling the fish have shifted from a dream of full extermination to a more pragmatic approach that aims to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes at all costs. At the heart of that approach is a deceptively big challenge: creating a market for carp, which means convincing American consumers that carp are delicious.
According to experts, a long-term solution to protect Great Lakes ecosystems from the invaders will involve states up and down the Mississippi River Basin collaborating on making commercial fishing of the carp sustainable. But for now, individual states are paving the way.
In 2018, Illinois implemented a grant program providing $8,000 to carp processors to expand their markets and sales. The state has also utilized increased funding to pay commercial fishers to remove carp very successfully.
The results have been impressive. In 2023, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources removed 750,000 pounds of invasive carp during a 10-day sweep through the Illinois River. The agency reports its efforts have reduced carp density in up river areas by 95 percent over the last 13 years. But Illinois is the last line of defense keeping the carp out of the Great Lakes. Carp don’t care much about state borders, and if the uncontrollable spread continues lower in the river basin, the problem will only get worse for downstream ecosystems and continue to put pressure on the Great Lakes.
One state that’s faced serious issues with carp is Arkansas, which has been linked definitively to the first outbreak in the Mississippi River all the way back in the 1960s. Now, the Natural State is taking inspiration from other basin states and implementing a pilot program to create both demand for the carp and a place to process them — with the ultimate goal of taking out 1.6 million pounds of fish from the river, more than five times the number the state has been able to harvest over the last four years.
The invasive carp in question are not one single species but rather a group of four species native to Asia that have all been introduced in the U.S.: the bighead carp, black carp, grass carp and silver carp (a fish now infamous to fishers and recreationists because of its affinity for leaping its 40-pound body out of the water when disturbed). In 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed the designation from “Asian carp” to “invasive carp” in the wake of anti-Asian hate crimes.
What makes these gigantic, googly-eyed fish such a problem? According to zoologist Jim Garvey at Southern Illinois State University, they have the potential to rapidly outcompete native species and destroy crucial, endangered biodiversity throughout the watershed.
“There is a real concern that this valuable biodiversity we have in North America is being challenged by these species,” Garvey says. “What we’ve found over the last 20 years or so since the invasion has really taken off is that there’s a lot of evidence to suggest these carp are having impacts on certain native fish, and probably impacts on native mussels as well. They’re certainly poised to get into the Great Lakes, which has a huge economic value from a recreational and commercial fishing standpoint.”
Chism holds up two species of invasive carp. The carp were introduced by accident into U.S. waterways during the 1970s. Credit: Phillip Powell, Arkansas Times
Garvey says the carp are outcompeting beloved natives like bass and catfish because the carp can reproduce far faster and are intent on eating up the plankton that young bass and catfish need to survive.
Congress has taken notice and has pushed money into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to control the species’ expansion since 2014, with $31 million appropriated to address the problem in fiscal year 2024. With the federal support, Illinois has launched a serious backstopping effort to keep the fish from entering Lake Michigan through the Des Plaines River and Chicago waterways. Congress also backstopped the invasive carp problem with an investment of nearly $226 million into the electric lock system on the Brandon Road dam, which is located 27 miles southwest of Chicago and intended to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes. The lock system includes layered technologies, such as an electric barrier that shocks approaching fish and a flushing lock that pushes fish downstream with powerful currents. All the technologies work together to prevent carp from getting in while allowing shipping commerce to continue between the river and the Great Lakes.
Two groups aim to coordinate the solution to the carp problem: The decades-old Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association (MICRA) is handling the invasive carp removal projects funded by Congress, while the Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee (ICRCC) is laser-focused on keeping the carp out of the Great Lakes.
