Targeting a nuisance fish

Pat Doyle,  Star Tribune

January 12, 2005 CARP0112

They root around, fat and seemingly happy, stirring up muck on the bottom of Minnesota lakes and damaging plants that provide food for ducks.

Reports of increasing schools of carp in some of the state's smaller lakes prompted a state commission Tuesday to recommend spending $550,000 to look for ways to limit the population.

The proposal calls for tapping the services of a University of Minnesota researcher who worked to control the sea lamprey population on the Great Lakes. The carp research would be funded by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources, which relies on revenue that the state Lottery invests in a state environmental trust fund.

The offensive on the oily, scaly fish is part of the commission's $39.3 million spending proposal for fiscal 2006 and 2007 -- a 20 percent increase over 2004 and 2005. Other proposals include major work on state hiking, biking or snowmobiling trails.

A large number of Minnesota lakes, "especially smaller and shallow lakes, are dominated by the common carp," Commission Director John Velin told members of the Senate Environment, Agriculture and Economic Development Budget Division.

"Carp come in and root into sediment of lakes," he said, adding that the fish create a cloud of sediment that can filter sunlight and hinder the growth of aquatic plants. "This is very detrimental to waterfowl. Their food source is changed."

Prof. Peter Sorensen of the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota, who has worked to control sea lamprey, said in his project proposal that "the common carp is presently the most damaging aquatic invasive species in our state."

The carp are present in especially high numbers and considered a problem in the southern half of Minnesota. Sorensen proposes finding better ways to target spawning areas of carp to control and reduce their populations.

In other project proposals, the commission Tuesday recommended spending more than $3 million to acquire, develop or expand trails around the state. They include the Gitchi-Gami Trail along the North Shore, the Mesabi Trail in northeastern Minnesota, the Arrowhead Regional Bike Trail, a portion of the Paul Bunyan Trail between Brainerd and Bemidji, and the Casey Jones Trail in southwestern Minnesota.

Pat Doyle is at [email-masked].