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Asian Carp and Chips twice, please, mate

P

Paul Boote

No Longer a Member
You are receiving a warning from me before it is all too horribly late.

First, the reality - the fish reaching plague proportions in North America. We've all seen the comical clips, here is one of them: http://youtu.be/PdcQ56OpxNE

Second, the "thinking" and "science" - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8726606/Exotic-fish-to-replace-cod.html

Still, the tackle industry and some mags and their sponsored beings (not to mention the otters) will probably think it a good thing (plus those who couldn't hook their arse in the bath)...
 
Oh god, what an uninformed article (Bighead Carp and Silver Carp are filter feeders for a start, not plant eaters). Have they not learnt the lessons from the US where this fish has virtually wiped out native species in the waters that it has invaded by destroying the food chain from the bottom up. Heaven help you if they escape into the rivers (which they will). If you want Bighead Carp for consumption we have more that enough over here to go around. They breed like wildfire and because of their size have no predators, although I guess the otters might like them, perhaps that's the plan.

Now Tilapia on the other hand, yum yum.
 
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Isn't it time this country adopted a robust enviromental policy, we allow all sorts of exotic plants and animals to be imported for no good reason , except to make money for someone. We need to stop anything being imported that can reproduce, plant or animal, except under very tightly controlled circumstances for medical research or endangered species where they can be kept in effectively a quaratine situation We now have to spend millions trying to remove or control things like Crayfish, Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, will we never learn?
Sadly some of these scientists may be very highly educated and brilliant in some ways but they are a dumb as tree stumps when it comes to common sense.

rant over
 
There is something to be said for stringent bio-import regulations. One place I know, Iceland, has had such rules for many many years, with anglers bringing fishing tackle, flies, waders, boots, nets etc with them on a visit to the country required to have a certificate of disinfection by a vet in their country of origin. Without one, your gear takes a bath in the tank of Virkon disinfectant at Customs in Keflavik Airport. Similarly, New Zealand is very tough, though this did not stop the Didymo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymosphenia_geminata - from being brought into the country via the felt soles of visiting American flyfishers' wading shoes. Other countries confiscate anything that might be considered a bio-hazard - feathers, meat, even your daily apple...
 
Robert Richbell said:
Isn't it time this country adopted a robust enviromental policy, we allow all sorts of exotic plants and animals to be imported for no good reason , except to make money for someone. We need to stop anything being imported that can reproduce, plant or animal, except under very tightly controlled circumstances for medical research or endangered species where they can be kept in effectively a quaratine situation We now have to spend millions trying to remove or control things like Crayfish, Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, will we never learn?
Sadly some of these scientists may be very highly educated and brilliant in some ways but they are a dumb as tree stumps when it comes to common sense.

rant over
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and black mink, orrible things, grey Squirrel????
 
I think there is a big difference between unintended invasives (like the grey squirrel, norwegian rats, or mitten crabs) and those that were bough in under licence and escaped (like crays or mink). Not a lot you can do about the unintended ones, it's going to happen. The licenced escapies though is a different matter, again you know it's going to happen (that they will at some point escape) so why allow them in the bloody first place.
 
Zander...Catfish....
 
And all the other Zoo Fish and Animals that people with money wanting to make rather more had waved through without a "But...".
 
Paul Boote said:
Parrots, small and very pretty beer. It was the "Let's get some of these - coypu (1929, Sussex fur farm), mink (1929 again) wild boar (1970s / '80s), Signal crayfish (1976) over here and make ourselves a few easy bob..." I was referring to.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/01/wild-boar-cull?intcmp=122
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I fail to see how wild boar are interlinked with the alien species list; wild boar are as indigenous to Britain as otters, so their reintroduction should be hailed as a success surely?
 
Colin Gordon said:
I fail to see how wild boar are interlinked with the alien species list; wild boar are as indigenous to Britain as otters, so their reintroduction should be hailed as a success surely?
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i thought it was a strange comment as well,
henry the 8th loved his wild boar and to hunt them in windsor park before he got fat!
 
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Colin Gordon said:
I fail to see how wild boar are interlinked with the alien species list; wild boar are as indigenous to Britain as otters, so their reintroduction should be hailed as a success surely?
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No, the wretched things got themselves declared somehow "Okay indigenous" much later after they had ruddy well escaped from commercial farming operations. The fact that they once lived in Britain and were wiped out yonks ago (and probably with very good reason) is irrelevant.

PS - Equating them with some people's pet-hate fish-killer otters just won't wash. Sorry.
 
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As I said, so much post-escape pleading. This from someone who has accompanied a number of small plot-protecting farmers in India on their boar hunts and happily ate the result.
 
Paul Boote said:
No, the wretched things got themselves declared somehow "Okay indigenous" much later after they had ruddy well escaped from commercial farming operations. The fact that they once lived in Britain and were wiped out yonks ago (and probably with very good reason) is irrelevant.

PS - Equating them with some people's pet-hate fish-killer otters just won't wash. Sorry.
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Sorry old boy, wild boar are an indigenous species to mainland Britain. Maybe they were eradicated for whatever "very good reason" people had 300 years ago but that's no matter nor is your or others blinkered opinions of the species, they have as much 'natural' right to be here as otters, foxes, badgers or even wolves and beavers.
Just because they don't meet with your idea of good doesn't matter a toss!

Oh and how they got reintroduced is an irrelevance to the fact that were here naturally until man decided to do away with them.
Rather a shame otters weren't dealt a similar fate, as I wonder what you'd be bleating then, maybe something like you do about the beaver reintroductions?
 
Carry on with your "old boy" and your otter mania in my absence here, Colin Gordon. Try Fishing Magic - there you might get an audience.
 
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