Asian carp is the American common name for bluefish, grass carp, bighead carp, silver carp, crucian carp and carp, which can be said to occupy an important place in this food culture.
Among them, blue carp, grass carp, bighead carp, silver carp, crucian carp are affectionately known as the four major fish by the people of our country, such as sweet and sour carp, braised carp, sauce stewed carp, West Lake vinegar fish, boiled fish, steamed fish, sauerkraut fish can be said to be our household names.
But the Asian carp "live" in China is not a childhood, but in Europe and the United States, living freely in the river, very comfortable, because the excellent living environment, fat like pigs, often fifty or sixty pounds. Asian carp has even become a nightmare for Europeans and Americans, which is estimated to make many Chinese foodies puzzled, why not eat them?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > why it is difficult for Asian carp to grow to fifty or sixty pounds in China</h1>
The longest-lived carp in Asia can live up to about 70 years old in good natural state, before its two years old, the male carp grows very fast, which helps it reach sexual maturity earlier, and the female after two years of age grows rapidly, which helps the female to spawn more, if the carp can grow in a good natural state for 10 years, its body length can reach 1 to 1.5 meters, and it can still grow slowly after that, so biologists believe that the carp can grow up to 100 pounds or so.
However Chinese the consumption demand for Asian carp is very high, according to the data of the "China Fishery Statistics Yearbook", the freshwater aquaculture output of the four major fish in China in 2018 reached 13.151 million tons, which shows our love for them.
Therefore, Chinese fishermen will start fishing after their sexual maturity, and the artificially raised Asian carp can live for a shorter time, and most of the time, before they reach sexual maturity, they are already sold in the market.
In addition, in the Chinese river basin, there are many natural enemies of Asian carp, which limits the further development of Asian carp.
In China, due to the huge fishing pressure, whether in rivers, lakes or offshore, the number of larger fish has decreased sharply, and there is a trend of fish miniaturization.
In summary, China's ecological environment and the dietary needs of Chinese limit the growth space of Asian carp.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > why Europeans and Americans do not eat Asian carp</h1>
Asian carp, as the name suggests, native to Asia, in 1963, in order to prevent the wanton growth of phytoplankton in the water body, purify the water body, the introduction of grass carp from China, and in the following years the introduction of bighead carp, silver carp and bluefish, since then began the Asian carp invasion of the world, or active introduction, or foreign invasion, they quickly camped in Europe and the United States. Asian carp are also highly adaptable, reproduce quickly, and can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time, coupled with no natural predators, so they quickly replaced the local natural fish species and soon spread to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. They can consume aquatic plants, plankton or wild mussels equivalent to 40% of their body weight every day, which can be said to be extremely damaging to the ecology.
Americans do not have the habit of eating Asian carp because they do not like their intermuscular spines and have many scales and are difficult to handle. Coupled with the early release of untreated industrial wastewater directly into the water body in the United States, the Mississippi River and other river basins are seriously polluted, the Mississippi River is currently one of the most polluted rivers in the United States, and one of the most polluted rivers in the world, the main pollutants are arsenic, mercury, nitrate and benzene. According to the local environmental protection department, the annual sewage fee is as high as 12.5 million. Asian carp grown in this environment will have a large amount of heavy metal elements in the body, of course, can not be eaten. (However, some water bodies of Asian carp heavy metals did not exceed the standard)
Without human predation pressure, coupled with the abundance of phytoplankton in the river, Asian carps tend to grow unexpectedly large and are more physically and responsive than their farmed counterparts. They grow into large carp in the United States that can reach a length of 1.2 meters, weigh 45 kilograms, and jump up to 2.4 meters.
Asian carp has also evolved a ferocious flying species, which scientists call "flying silver carp", which is incredibly athletic, not only can jump over obstacles more than 3m high, but even jump out of the water to "fly" 6 to 7m. On January 19, 2012, an American fishing enthusiast named Dig Pete caught a silver carp in the upper reaches of the Calumet River. The fish is nearly 1.2 meters long and weighs 40 kg. Scientists have learned that Asian carp has evolved new species.
Asian carp are sensitive to noise. Can you imagine a carp weighing nearly 30 kilograms jumping out of the water and scrambling to jump onto a boat? Don't think it's a joke, in the Mississippi River, the United States, such scenes are played out every day. When boats approach, they suddenly jump out of the water, and sometimes fishermen wear helmets to prevent carp from hitting. Some species of fish can even jump up to 10 feet tall. As a result, Asian carp is also known for damaging ships and equipment on board and even harming crews.
At this time, scientists found that Asian carps were moving north at a rate of 50 nautical miles a year, and now swam from the Illinois River to the canals of Romeo Village, Illinois. The waterway connects the Mississippi River basin with the Great Lakes and begins to invade the Great Lakes, the last position of native U.S. fish.
Scientists are beginning to worry that the big carp could damage the ecosystem of the Great Lakes region and threaten the local drinking water source for 40 million people. So I started to find ways to eliminate these Asian carp.
In addition, aquatic plants are heavily consumed by Asian carp, and the food on which native fish depend is unsustainable. The decline of aquatic plants and the destruction of the spawning environment of native fish have caused a sharp decline in native fish populations and difficulties in survival, affecting the local fishery economy.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Asian carp a nightmare for Americans
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Since 2007, the U.S. government has adopted a poisoning method, but this method is not targeted, not only did not eliminate carp, but poisoned many native freshwater fish. It is true that the frustrated U.S. government decided to use high-tech power to annihilate carp ——— power grid, and install power grids in rivers near the five lakes.
The American people also began to hunt Asian carp, and when they jumped out of the water, the people on board shot with bows and arrows, but it did not have the desired effect.
In January 2014, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers even submitted to the U.S. Congress a plan to prevent carp from entering the Great Lakes region, which is expected to cost $18 billion to stop Asian carp with 25 years of levees. It can be said that the invasion of Asian carp has made Americans feel frightened.
In February 2018, Illinois launched a new pilot program. Under the plan, the government will give fishermen a subsidy of 10 cents per pound of Asian carp. So in the past two years, fishermen have also begun to slowly accept Asian carp, beat up and send it to a special processing plant for processing, classified by species, there are whole frozen to sell, there are also fruitlets to sell later (supermarkets sell frozen imported fish fillets), and some will also be provided to the fresh market in its entirety. Those that no one else wants will be broken into fishmeal and sold to pet food factories.
Many local Chinese have also begun to create fishing companies, buy Asian carp, and process carp, make carp into fish balls, sausages, smoked fish and other exports, and recycle fish waste in the processing process to make organic fish fat. Despite this, compared with the small number of consumers, the breeding of Asian carp has not been fundamentally curbed.
Many people ask why they are not exported to China, Chinese do not like to eat refrigerated freshwater fish, secondly, the price of Asian carp imported from Europe and the United States is too expensive to buy in the market, plus, China has rich experience in freshwater fish breeding and cultivation, and the artificially cultivated Asian carp tastes better.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Asian carp invading the globe</h1>
As I said at the beginning, in addition to invading the United States, Asian carp is now widely found in European water bodies, not only in large numbers but also in large numbers.
In the long-term evolutionary process of nature, organisms and organisms restrict and coordinate with each other, limiting their respective populations to a certain habitat and quantity, forming a stable ecological balance system. Invasive alien species are usually not harmful in the original living area, but once they spread to the new environment, adapt to the local environment and become dominant species, they can have a devastating impact on the regional ecological balance.
With the development of transportation, the world's close travel, biological invasion phenomenon is more and more serious, according to environmental experts statistics, in China has produced serious harm to at least 283 species of invasive alien species, the World Union for Conservation of Nature released the world's 100 most threatening invasive alien species, China has 50 species.
How to solve the problem of biological invasion and maintain ecological balance is currently a global problem.