Editors note: below is a lengthy but comprehensive story about the Asian carp problem, primarily in Illinois. It also talks to John Goss, former Indiana Department of Natural Resources director
The Asian carp is a skittish fish, averaging about 2 feet long and 10 pounds apiece. When startled by something, say a boat’s motor, it’s prone to jump as high as 10 feet in the air. So when Blake Ruebush, Levi Solomon and Chase Holtman, an ecology team with the Illinois Natural History Survey, head out on an early October carp-hunting mission, they do so with caution, and armor.
Ruebush’s steering console has been modified with a carp- proof Plexiglas windshield and a side wall of mesh netting to guard the throttle and steering wheel from aerial impact. The team considered wearing helmets but dismissed the idea as too dorky. Instead, despite the humidity, Ruebush and Solomon wear waders to repel the slime. Holtman, a burly-looking guy, has gone the other way, opting for a T-shirt, shorts and Crocs. “I’ll shower afterward,” he says in the Feb. 20 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek. “People look at you funny when you reek of blood and fish.”
As they depart from Havana, Illinois, and up a side channel of the Illinois River, the water starts to churn with agitated fish, and the boat’s hull thumps from underwater collisions. Then the fish start flying — dozens of them, rising like a storm cloud. One ricochets off the boat’s guardrail; another leaps in from behind, getting tangled in the motor’s steering cords. The air is so thick with fish that some bash together midflight, showering everyone with a snot-like splatter.
The fish come in at close to 30 miles per hour. That’s enough to cause bruises and broken noses — even concussions have been recorded — but Ruebush and his crew seem unworried. “This is ground zero for Asian carp,” Ruebush says, steering forward as his buddies stand at the front of the boat. They won’t have to endure the barrage much longer, though. They’re about to electrocute all the fish.
READ MORE: Jaw-Breaking Midwest Carp Flying Home to China’s Dinner Plates – Bloomberg.
