earth day
Nonnatives
and
Invasives:
Nonnative species — bad. Native
species — good.
Well mostly. Not all nonnatives
invade, and some are benefi cial.
You don’t hear the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife
complaining about hordes of
daffodils taking over the wetlands,
but you do hear about people
working to restore Oregon oak
savannas fi ghting those (native)
Douglas fi rs invading like the Ents
of the Lord of the Rings gone
bad. Those bees and earthworms
gardeners love? Not native. The
wolves returning to Oregon that
ranchers are railing against? Well,
wolves once were native. For Earth
Day, EW explores nonnatives and
invasives from mute swans — not
silent but perhaps deadly — to carp
and crawdads to look at what is
making its way into our state and
what these animals bring to the
table, sometimes literally.
— Camilla Mortensen
12 APRIL 21, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
Stalking the elusive
‘Kentucky tuna’
in Oregon waters
TODD COOPER
The good,
the bad and
the ugly
Carpe
the Carp
BY DANTE ZUÑIGA-WEST
I
n the ponds, rivers, lakes and backwaters
of Oregon lurk invaders who have
been here for decades. Hard-fi ghting
behemoths, hidden beneath vegetation and
murk, they have escaped captivity to wreak
havoc. They thrive in our waterways,
destroying the habitat, bullying native
species and, if their bigger, scarier friends
get here, we could be in for a nasty series
of events. We must hunt them — all of
them — now. I gave it my best shot.
Common carp have been in Oregon
so long that most people are unaware
these fi sh are an invasive species. Native
to Eurasia and originally imported
to aquaculture ponds in the Pacifi c
Northwest, these bottom-feeding warm-
water domestic invaders can grow upwards
of thirty pounds. Carp in the wild get even
bigger. The infamous silver carp can grow
to be one hundred pounds in weight and
is known to exhibit an unusual jumping
behavior in response to the sound of boat
motors.
Imagine a hundred pound fi sh leaping
out of the water and smacking you in
the head while you are cruising down
the Willamette. It happens often on the
Mississippi River, where Asian carp are
already a problem, causing reports of
signifi cant physical injury (broken jaws,
concussions, etc). Rick Boatner, invasive
species and wildlife integrity coordinator
for the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife (ODFW), says Oregon will be in
“serious trouble” if Asian carp, specifi cally
silver or bighead carp, fi nd their way
into our waters to join our common carp
invaders. “So far we don’t have any
reports of them here, but our habitat in
the Willamette Valley is perfect for them,”
Boatner says.
Most troubling, Boatner says, are
YouTube videos from the southern United
States where people cruise through
carp-infested water with loud motors
and bowfi sh as the fi sh rise to jump. He
worries that these videos will inspire locals
to import silver and bighead carp into
Oregon’s rivers.
Though ODFW has several different
kinds of Asian carp on its radar screen —
grass, silver, bighead and black carp — it is
the common carp that we in the Willamette
Valley see the most. They have a bronze-
brownish color and, unlike Asian carp, which
have eyes oddly placed on either side of their
heads, common carp have eyes where you’d
expect to fi nd them on a fi sh — more toward
the top. While not as violently dangerous
to human physical wellbeing as their silver
buddies, common carp are incredibly
destructive to the local ecosystems.
“They eat fi sh eggs, microinvertebrates;
they stir up sediment and destroy the
vegetation that smaller fi sh need to hide
in,” Boatner says. “We encourage people
to catch and take them. There’s no limit to
how many you can take.” One $30 permit
and you’re good to go.
So the verdict came down from above:
Hunt the invaders, go to their strongholds,
seek them out and harvest them for the
good of Mother Nature — and for Oregon.
If you can’t beat ‘em, catch ‘em and eat
‘em. This is already happening in the
South, and should the carp species boom
in the Pacifi c Northwest it is likely that
ODFW and some conservationist groups
will more strongly urge fi shermen to do
the same. It’s not just locavores; now we
can be invasivores.
But I found myself somewhat
discouraged in my hunt for the elusive
“Kentucky tuna.” I’d picked up a lead that
there were carp in the Alton Baker canoe
canal and made my way there with spear
and rod. Yes, spear. Because carp are not
considered by ODFW to be a game fi sh
(similar to crayfi sh and bullfrogs), it is
permissible to hunt them with bows and
spears as well as rod and reel. I searched the
canal for any sign of the “Golden Ghost,”
but saw nothing. A local fi sherman and his
son responded quizzically to my endeavor:
“Why you fi shing for carp?” asked the
father. “You want a mouthful of bones?”
I returned with my limit of fi ve
rainbow trout, but no carp. Absolutely no
one I encountered on my trips to the canal,
Coyote Creek or Fern Ridge Reservoir
suggested I attempt to eat a carp should I
catch one. I didn’t. Not many of my friends
were excited about the prospect of coming
along with me, either — carp fi shing can
be a lonely sport in Oregon. It’s best to go
in the summer, when the water is warmer.
Though the internet is full of interesting
ways to cook and eat carp, the trend
hasn’t caught fi re here in our state. Carp
supposedly tastes like a cross between
scallops and crab. Russian populations
have been known to broil carp, and the fi sh
is a staple among some Asian cultures. I’ve
yet to fi nd out for myself how carp tastes,
but I’m not giving up. The invaders remain
at large, to be hunted. à
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