I received this this morning from a friend.  I believe it came from
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Kevin

Invasion of Asian carp worries state officials.  Monday October 9, 2000

By <mailto:[log in to unmask]>Bill Lambrecht  Of the
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON - * The black carp, which is native to Asia,
is used here by fish farmers to control mollusks, some of which carry
a parasite that can kill farm-raised fish. Fisheries officials say
the fish could escape from farm ponds into rivers, threatening some
species of snails and mollusks with extinction.

The invasion of Asian carp into Midwestern waters never was more
evident than during a recent visit by a Japanese film crew to find
out what swims in the river that Mark Twain made famous.  Journeying
by boat into a Mississippi River slough, the crew discovered
thousands of carp rolling, leaping in the air and even landing in
their boats.  "One of the cameramen got hit in the head with a fish,"
recalled Missouri conservation agent Danny Brown, who accompanied
them. "It's almost unimaginable how many carp are out there."

Fish biologists have plenty to worry about with three species of
Asian carp, the bighead, silver and grass carp, flourishing in the
Mississippi and its tributaries. They were imported for weed control,
and then escaped and bred in the wild, where they're muscling native
fish out of food.  Now fisheries chiefs are concerned about the
arrival of another exotic species -- the black carp, a voracious fish
that grows to 4 feet long and possesses yet another hunger. The black
carp eat mollusks, such as clams and snails, many of them rare and
bordering on extinction.  Worried about their waters, fisheries
chiefs from Missouri and 25 other states in the Mississippi River
basin petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year to
declare the black carp "injurious wildlife." That designation would
prevent its importation and transfer across state lines, and
therefore go a long way to prevent its spread.  The chiefs want to
act before the black carp spreads from ponds into the Mississippi and
other rivers.

But to fish farmers, the black carp is a beautiful species. The black
carp devours snails that carry a deadly parasite known as yellow grub
that afflicts farm ponds from Missouri south to Mississippi where
catfish and other species are raised.  Fish farmers are protesting
the potential ban all the way to Washington, and those complaints
already have resulted in a casualty: the federal coordinator for
state fisheries in the Midwest.

In August, the Fish and Wildlife Service abolished the job of Jerry
Rasmussen, a federal employee who has worked for a decade as the
coordinator of the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resources
Association. The organization consists of the state fisheries heads
of 28 states, including Missouri and Illinois.  State fisheries
chiefs are dismayed by the sudden departure of Rasmussen, a 25-year
Fish and Wildlife employee who, by all accounts, has been
extraordinarily helpful to Missouri and other states. Missouri
fisheries administrator Norm Stucky said last week that Rasmussen's
departure "is of great concern to us. He was an outstanding
coordinator."  Officials at the Fish and Wildlife agency are
tight-lipped about what happened to Rasmussen. But there's little
question that he was removed because of his outspoken concerns about
the black carp and his assistance to states making a case to ban it.
Rasmussen may have been prophetic when he wrote last spring in "River
Crossings," the state resource association's newsletter, of the
battle lines forming in the black carp battle.  "Those who support
the use of black carp are busy lobbying their congressman. . . .
Those who are opposed will have to do the same. Unfortunately, the
former is driven by investments and profits and the latter by concern
for public interest. The public interest usually doesn't win those
battles."

Asian invasion

Fisheries experts in Missouri have known since the 1980s that Asian
carp have become a menace since moving in to compete with native fish
for food. But they were startled at what they found at a fish kill
along the Mississippi River a year ago near Wilkinson Island, 90
miles south of St. Louis.  When they counted carcasses, 97 percent
were species of Asian carp. Fish and Wildlife officials said fish
kills at five other locations showed similar concentrations of the
exotic invaders.  Iowa fisheries chief Marion Connover remarked last
week that the Asian carp have traveled into his state's waters via
the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and now are "stacked up like cord
wood" behind dams on Iowa rivers.

Conservation agents argue that the fast-growing carp are accelerating
a decline in native fish, among them the buffalo and the paddlefish,
by out-competing them for plankton. In May, an Asian carp weighing 50
pounds was snagged in the Cumberland River in Tennessee.  "I have
affectionately been calling these fish the kudzu of the aquatic
world," said Stucky, Missouri's fisheries chief. "It is hard to
describe how abundant they are. They're huge fish, growing at
incredible rates."  It's just a matter of time, the fish biologists
say, before the black carp escape from fish farms in Missouri and
elsewhere.

Jim Kahrs, who operates Osage Catfisheries in Osage Beach, Mo., has
been battling Missouri for years to keep the black carp that he
imported from China in 1988 and has bred since. Kahrs says the carp
are his only means to prevent the spread of the yellow grub parasite
that threaten the catfish, bass and bluegill and more than 20 other
species that he raises on 250 acres of ponds. He ships the fish
around the world.

Missouri conservation department officials say they first ordered
Kahrs to get rid of the black carp after hearing in 1994 that some of
them had escaped into the Osage River during a flood. The state
apparently hasn't been too insistent, considering that the black carp
are still swimming in Kahrs' ponds.  Kahrs, 73, says the state has no
say over what fish he raises, and that authorities have no proof that
his black carp escaped.  He said he received another letter four
months ago saying he had three months to get rid of the black carp.
"We have not done it and we are not going to do it. This is private
property and it has nothing to do with the state or the United
States," he said.

Pond owners' pressure

While Kahrs raises black carp for his own use, an ally to the south,
Mike Freeze, co-owner of Keo Fish Farms, in Keo, Ark., raises them to
sell. If you live in Arkansas, Mississippi or one of the states that
has no restrictions, you can order fingerling black carp for about
$1.75 in bulk and foot-long fish for $4.25.  Freeze, who also sits on
the seven-member Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, has been a leader
on behalf of fish farmers in fighting the proposed black carp ban.

"Our plea to Fish and Wildlife is don't take away the only tool we
have to protect our farms and our livelihoods unless you give us
another tool," he said.  Freeze complained about the role of
Rasmussen, the Fish and Wildlife employee. Those complaints led to a
meeting July 24 in Washington on the issue that apparently sealed
Rasmussen's fate.  The meeting, which took place in the office of
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., included Fish and Wildlife director
Jamie Clark, Freeze, and other Arkansans. At that meeting, according
to one participant, Clark declared that Rasmussen would no longer be
involved in the black carp issue.

Five days later, Rasmussen was told of that decision. In August,
after complaining in e-mails about being muzzled, the Fish and
Wildlife Service said that Rasmussen had a conflict of interest and
removed him from heading the multistate fisheries group. He was
reassigned elsewhere in the agency as a staff biologist.  Fish and
Wildlife Service officials declined to discuss Rasmussen. One of the
officials, Rick Schuldt, would say only that "this is a situation
where we can easily put our employee in a very difficult ethical
position."  Aides to Lincoln declined to comment, as did Rasmussen.
Rasmussen of Bettendorf, Iowa, has been a key player and a popular
figure along the Mississippi River. He was assigned to the White
House to coordinate the federal response to the 1993 flood and he
helped to devise his agency's environmental management program.  Jeff
Ruch, executive director of the Washington-based, Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility, said that Fish and Wildlife Service
"turned tail at the first sign of political pressure. . . . Their
treatment of Jerry Rasmussen has cast a gauzy restraint over what
employees can say."  William Reeves, state fisheries director of
Tennessee and chairman of the 28-state alliance of fisheries
agencies, says Rasmussen will be missed. "He was the kind of person
you could rely on 100 percent of the time. He was right there when
states needed him," he said.

Sometime in the next year, the Fish and Wildlife Agency must decide
whether the black carp will join zebra mussels, the walking catfish
and animals such as the mongoose and the India wild dog on the
federal list of injurious wildlife.  Agency biologists are sorting
through more than 100 public comments they have received, among them
from the Catfish Farmers of America, which represents 1,400 fish
farms in the United States.

Hugh Warren, the catfish group's executive director, said that his
Mississippi-based trade group recommends that the government approve
sterile black carp so as to minimize the risk of environmental harm.
"This is a temporary solution to an emergency situation," he said.
On the other side of the issue is Paul Johnson, president of the
Fresh Water Mollusk Conservation Society, based in Cohutta, Ga.
Johnson said that escape of the mollusk-crunching black carp could
prove devastating to an animal suffering from the highest rate of
extinction of any species in the America.  Already, he said, 77
species of freshwater mussels and snails have become extinct in North
America.  "They're probably the most overlooked conservation issue in
the United States; they're the canary in the coal mine, if you will.
Just because something is harder to see doesn't mean it shouldn't be
appreciated," he said.
--
Kevin S. Cummings
Illinois Natural History Survey
607 E. Peabody Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
[log in to unmask]
http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cbd/collections/mollusk.html