For those not familiar with the situation, black carp are yet another
exotic fish imported into the US to control planorbid snails in
catfish ponds. Their eventual escape into the Mississippi River basin
and potential to impact native freshwater mollusks is enormous.  An
excellent article by Ted Williams on the exotic black carp situation
has just come out in Fly Rod & Reel magazine.  I can be viewed
on-line at:  http://www.flyrodreel.com/pages/conservation.html. Ted
was kind enough to allow anyone to send a copy of his article to our
congressman protesting the removal of Jerry Rasmussen as the chair of
MICRA  (the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association)
by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  MICRA is an organization that
played a large role in creating the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation
Society.  There is an e-mail link to send copies of the article on
the web page listed above.  I urge all US citizens that receive this
message to send a copy to their congressman ASAP. There are good
people in state and federal government that are trying to do good
things for the resource and a few connected fish farmers can apply
pressure to the director of the USFWS and get someone shipped to
Siberia.  This kind of crap has to stop.  Another short piece on
black carp also came out in Science (Vol 29, no. 5115:203) this week
and mentioned the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society!

Kevin
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Kevin S. Cummings
Illinois Natural History Survey
607 E. Peabody Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
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http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cbd/collections/mollusk.html

Join the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society Today!
http://ellipse.inhs.uiuc.edu/fmcs/