The ever pesky Asian carp. Photo: Shedd’s Aquarium.
Editor’s Note: It’s an Echo tradition to revisit one of our favorite holiday stories: Tim Campbell’s The Twelve Days of Aquatic Invasive Species Christmas.
Campbell rewrote the lyrics of the holiday tune for the Wisconsin Sea Grant in 2011. We’re publishing a new verse on each of the actual twelve days of Christmas.
On the seventh day of Christmas, a freighter sent to me…
Seven carp and counting — There are seven species of invasive carp in the United States. There are the four collectively known as Asian carp (black, grass, silver and bighead), the common carp, the crucian carp, and last but not least, the Prussian carp (aka the goldfish). While the current focus is on the silver and bighead carp, all of these carp cause problems one way or another. Hopefully, we won’t actually be counting any other carp species soon.
Six lamprey leaping, FIVE BOAT-WASH STATIONS! Four perch on ice, three clean boat steps, two red swamp crayfish and a carp barrier in the city!