Fight Against Asian Carp Threatens Fragile Great Lakes Unity

Fight Against Asian Carp Threatens Fragile Great Lakes Unity

Quarter 2

Article 3

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/science/earth/03states.html

NY times

Miller Chapter

The area covered is national.

Asian carp, the voracious, nonnative fish whose arrival near Lake Michigan is threatening to cause havoc in the Great Lakes, are now setting off strife on land as well. An urgent effort to close down Chicago-area passages that could allow the unwanted fish to reach Lake Michigan, the State of Michigan is suing the State of Illinois and other entities that govern the waterways here. Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin have filed documents in recent days supporting Michigan’s move, and Indiana says it will soon do the same.Some $475 million was designated to clean up pollution, protect habitat and fight invasive species in the Great Lakes. For years, leaders in the region worried about Asian bighead and silver carp — large, imported fish that can take over an ecosystem by consuming the food supply of other fish and that were known to be making their way north up the Mississippi River. But the efforts took on a new urgency in November, when the authorities reported finding genetic evidence of the carp within about six miles of Lake Michigan, in the Chicago-area waterway system that links the Mississippi to the Great Lakes.

I think that the waterways need to be governed so that nonnative fish such as Asian carp do not reach the Great Lakes. It would be very harmful to the ecosystem of the Great Lakes if the carp were able to migrate there. Since, authorities have found genetic evidence of the carp within six miles, measures need to be made immediately to try to solve this problem.

Vocabulary-

Invasive Species- A non indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically.