North Dakota Carp Invasion

Carp have been dominating North Dakota’s waters since the late 1800’s and since then they have spread rapidly. Carp can have life spans up to 15 years and they can exceed to weights of up to 20 pounds. Carp are bottom feeders and mainly feed on all kinds of plant and marine life. Carp are bad for our waters because there stir up the muddy bottoms and make it harder for sight fish to see their food. They can also stunt growth of aquatic plants by uprooting them directly from the lake bottoms which can harm the process of photosynthesis. These are all factors contributing to the overpopulated carp population.

Carp harm waters and cause many problems for anglers. Eventually reservoirs and lakes get full of old large carp and their reproduction is very poor. With fewer old carp food for the younger carp may be abundant. The younger carp have more food because the older carp stop eating as much which makes more food for the younger ones and allows them to grow rapidly. When they get to a big size there is nothing else to eat them so that’s also why they are overpopulated and not well managed.

Poor land use actions can cause problems to because a watershed can result in sediment input and enriches nutrients in lakes which often favor rough fish. It is important to practice good land use because if it’s not done it can create a bigger problem. Game and Fish have to manage the carp populations so they don’t get worse than they are now. Laws have been put into place while you are fishing or boating, you can’t transport live aquatic bait because they can get into water systems and reproduce quickly which causes the problems. All water must be drained as well so nothing in that water can spread into other lakes.

Fishery biologists are working on finding better ways to eliminate some of these fish because they are causing big problem to watersheds. They have been using eradication in the fish community to improve water quality and to rehabilitate the fishing industry. The intent of a project like this is to develop an effective and safe approach into long term management plans. For over populated carp they use trap nets and gill nets

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cyprinus_carpio#/media/File:Cyprinus_carpio1.jp

overpopulated carp cause many problems to watersheds
overpopulated carp cause many problems to watersheds

to capture and release as many fish as possible. They also mark the carp to estimate population throughout the years.

Carp have been managed throughout the years with many safe ways to keep watersheds and anglers happy. If carp have never been managed then the lakes and waters of North Dakota would be destroyed because they damage vegetation in the water which hurts other species. Carp hurt the environment because they make it harder on other fish and species because once they get overweight nothing can eat them because they are so big.

 

1.) what are some important things we can do to stop the overpopulated carp?

2.) How can we control them?

3.) What are some regulations we could have on fishing them?

 

4 thoughts on “North Dakota Carp Invasion

  1. I think that this blog is very important to people in North Dakota. We have a lot of the carp population that gets out of hand. Carp is one of the strangest fish I have learned about. I think if carp takes over all of these lakes and rivers, that we wont have as big of diversity of other fish in the water. I found that this article connects with North Dakota and how the reality of carp taking over the other fish and how they are at risk. http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndwild/carp.html

  2. I think that in order for us to be successful in reducing the carp populations we need to be able to stop the carp from reproducing as fast as they are. We would be much better off if we could reduce the number of carp because then our water quality would be much better because the plants that the carp are destroying could help. According to the University of North Dakota some other fish species are struggling because the carp are taking the food from them. All in all something needs to be done in order to help our other fish species.

    Source-
    http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndwild/carp.html

  3. Carp are one crazy fish. I really do believe that we need to do something more effective about because since they do get so big and nothing is big enough to eat it they should be put in a n area of water where there are bigger things so it can be eaten. They are also super dangerous because they feed on the plant life on the bottoms making it harder for smaller marine life to even get any food because the carp are so bug they just take over. No matter how hard we try carp probably will always overpopulate unless something extreme happens and they cant survive we are just going to have to continue what we have been doing that has seemed to work for a while now. http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndwild/carp.html In many nutrient-rich reservoirs, carp may at first reproduce successfully, resulting in one or two strong year classes in succession. Since they dominate in the lakes they grow to be about 20 pounds and have gained a life span of up to 15 years. Eventually the reservoir is full of large, old carp whose reproductive success is poor, because the reservoir’s carrying capacity for carp is reached. The fact that they are overpopulating and then their reproductive gets slow because they don’t die over could lead to disease and end up killing more marine life than there should be.

  4. I agree and I think it is important that we control the amount of carp that are in our lakes and ponds. If the carp take over I think it could result in a huge loss of the fish population. It could even drive some fish to become extinct. Some important things I think we can do to help stop it is by making sure the ponds aren’t stocked too much. I think they need to be aware of the population growth of the carp and not put as many carp in the ponds next time. http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndwild/carp.html I found this article that talks about how the carp are really taking over other fish populations and putting them at risk.

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