[ SPECIES ] Australian government plans to launch a new project and introduce herpes viruses in a river system in southern Australia. The viruses supposedly kill only carp, while the native species are spared. The government is planning to spend 10 million euros on the programme, which is to kill 95 of the ever-expanding carp population within 30 years. But this herpes virus plan, also called „Carpageddon“ by critics, is controversial. What, for example, is to be done with the fish carcasses, should it really come to a mass death of the carp? Apart from that, the use of viruses involves considerable risks because they mutate quickly and unpredictably and may have completely different effects than originally intended. After the pond has been emptied the carp are normally kept for some time in clean water to rid them of their often somewhat musty flavour.
to the catches of commercial fishermen must be added the quantities caught by many hundreds of thousands of sports fishermen, and they are not included in the FAO statistics. Carp is popular with anglers because they grow very big, are strong fighters and can be baited selectively with suitable lures (boilies). Many anglers prefer scaly carp to the domesticated breeding forms because they put up more of a fight on the hook. A significant proportion of aquaculture production in Europe is used to stock natural waters with carp. Often, it takes years for the fishes to be caught. And this is quite visible in the fishing records reported by proud anglers. The current world record for mirror carp was registered in Hungary in 2012, where a fish weighing 46.1 kg with a length of 113 cm was landed. In the case of scaly carp, the record is 45.5 kg. (This fish was caught in the French Etang de Saussaie in 2013.) Some anglers let the fish go again after the catch. This practice
Targeted control of carp as an invasive species
other waters is no less severe. That is why the fish is considered a pest and attempts are being made to eradicate it‌ For example, by releasing genetically modified carp into the waters in the hope that these will then cross into overgrown populations and lead to pure male offspring. So far, however, these efforts have had only limited success. In 2018, the
Carp is not welcome everywhere, however. In Australia the farming and release of the fish is even prohibited by law because it is considered an invasive species which, through its digging activity in the sediment, clouds the water, damages the ground vegetation and frees bound nutrients. Immigrants had introduced the carp to Australia in the 19th century. Then in the 1960s their number exploded after animals had escaped into the wild from a fish farm. In the Murray-Darling Basin, for example, carp accounts for over 80 of the total fish biomass and the situation in many
Almost every carp farming region has a preferred breeding stock which is characterized by either short / compact or more elongated body shapes.
meets with violent criticism however, especially with animal protectionists who argue that “Catch & Release� contradicts the Protection of Animals Act which prohibits the inflicting of suffering on a vertebrate without reasonable cause.
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Just how difficult it is to control and fight viral diseases can be seen in the example of the Koi Herpes Virus (KHV), which is actually called Carp Nephritis and Gill Necrosis Virus (CNGNV). Since the beginning of the millennium, it has caused economic damage in European carp farms and has even penetrated natural waters. The increasing intensity of carp production in some areas and the interregional transport
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