If Asian Carp are already past the last barriers and beginning to feed voraciously in Lake Michigan, it’s not because Andy Buchsbaum sat idle and hoped for the best.
Buchsbaum, the fiery executive director of the National Wildlife Federations Great Lakes office, just launched a new blog called “Great Lakes on the Ground.”
You’ve no doubt seen the headlines about poisoning the Chicagoland canals leading from Lake Michigan eventually down to the Mississippi. But Buchsbaum has been leading the charge on the fight to close the last navigational locks to Lake Michigan — the locks are the last line of defense and, as Buchsbaum argues, DNA evidence suggest the carp may already be past, or at least poised to get past, the locks.
Buchsbaum is literally pleading for faster, stronger government action.
If no one hears him, and a multi-billion-dollar Great Lakes fishery is destroyed by the mother of all invasive species, we can’t say we weren’t warned.
Our guess is that Buchsbaum will issue many types of siren calls on Great Lakes issues in coming years on this blog. If we value the Great Lakes and its fisheries and beaches and life-giving waters, we will hear him and join in his ride.
One Comment
Did anyone hear and see the stories of fisherman motoring the Illinois River and the Mississippi with Asian Carp jumping into their boats? The engine noise in the water gets the carp jumping. The carp is attracted or annoyed by the engine noise. Instead of using poison, why not use noisy harvesting boats? Cover the boat with nets to catch all the carp that jump into the boat. Use a shallow bottom boat and troll back and forth. Or, have a staggered convoy of boats move downstream, covering shore to shore. Put the crew into protective cages.