Some super cool facts about the silver carp!
Watch your back because these fish might just come out of the water and get ya when you’re not looking! Imagine 20 pounds of fish coming and smacking you in the head when all you’re trying to do is enjoy a nice boat ride on the Mississippi River. Th
e silver carp is truly a fascinating organism with its ability to jump up to 10 feet out of the water when disturbed with a loud noise, usually this noise comes from an outboard motor on a boat. This phenomena is seemingly “cool” up until the point you get hit by one and it breaks your jaw. Here is a link to a newspaper where a woman is out extreme aerial bow fishing, a relatively new sport due to the introduction of the silver carp, and is hit in the jaw by a rather large carp.
Link to article: http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/fishing/2009/08/when-carp-attack
Not only is the silver carp dangerous to operators and passengers on motor boats, but also to a water skier or tuber, a sport that has mostly disappeared from the Mississippi River because it is so dangerous. Not only has the silver carp greatly affected the water recreation industry on the Mississippi river but they have also affected the fishing community as well in a negative way. The overabundance of carp has edged ou
t different species of game fish within the Mississippi River system, not only are there more “garbage fish”, but there is now more of a risk to taking your kids out fishing for the day.
The silver carp have three main relatives the bighead carp, its closest relative, the grass carp and the black carp. All of these carp were introduced around the same time with the exception of black carp which was introduced several years later and is just starting to establish itself in the U.S. A more in depth description of each of the silver carp’s relatives can be found on the Carp Attack page.
Watch this amazing video on what these jumping carp really look like!
http://www.youtube.comwatchv=EJoXw9XZ238& feature=related
SWEET FACTS!
Return to HOME
Photographed below Peoria Lock and Dam, September 2005, by Melissa Smith, Illinois River Biological Station-Illinois Natural History Survey
