Re: RE: NANFA-L-- Carp News

dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
Tue, 24 May 2005 10:04:17 -0500

Carp, introduced to a continent where it was not native but thrived,
especially under degraded conditions with reduced competition from
natives, then blamed for the degradation. Sort of like the people I
knew when I was a kid (and quite a few now, come to think of it) who
blamed poor people who must work for minimum wage for not wearing
better clothes, for not going to better schools, and for needing health
care. Don't know how many times when I was a kid that I heard that
carp and gar were ruining the rivers around Dallas (where I grew up).
Of course, those rivers were urban nightmares, with barely treated
sewage, urban runoff, and factory effluents choking them. But my
neighbor used to say that the Trinity R. once had thriving catfish,
crappie, bass, and "bream" (sunfish) populations, but the gar had just
about eliminated them.

But a good many invasives do cause a great deal of harm. At any rate,
we don't need any more non-native fishes.

Dave

David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm

"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"

----- Original Message -----
From: Irate Mormon <archimedes-in-bayspringstel.net>
Date: Monday, May 23, 2005 10:00 pm
Subject: RE: NANFA-L-- Carp News

>
> As carp angling enthusiast Tom Dickson put it, "The carp was the
> perfectscapegoat. It was foreign. It was thriving. And it couldn't
> defenditself."
>
> So, carp "hapless scapegoat" or carp, "invasive bad guy"?
>
>
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
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