Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-04
THE PERNICIoUs CARP.
The Imported Fish is Doing an Untold
Amount of Evil.

The Imported Fish is Doing an Untold
Amount Of Evil.
From the Toronto Mail and Empire
The German carp. against which the hand
of every fisherman is raised because of his
displacing better fish, is accused Of one
more and still worse crime by Alderman O.
B. Sheppard. dominion Inspector of fish
cries for Ontario. to wit, that Of driving
out our best water fowl by eating their
food i~ -,..
Mr.. Sheppard, upon his return from an
inspection trip stated that the problem of
getting rid Of or keeping under the carp is
now facing the fishery authorities on both
sides Of the line. From all he could learn
the carp was In Germany a ffne-grained
and delicate fish, but its transplanting to
America, with its new variety of food, had
caused 1t to slide down the scale until it Is
about the least desirable of our food fishes
Its chief fault is its driving away other
fish and gradually eXterminating them by
eating their eggs
Latterly, however, it had been noticed
that the carp We're destroying the beds Of
wild rice, which forms the chief food of
wild ducks, geese and other aquatic birds
Upon the trip from which he was Just
returning Alderman Sheppard had noticed
that in Cooks bay, Lake Simcoe, where
there were formerly, hundreds of acres Of
wild rice, there was not to be seen spear
Of that plant today The same was true of
the Holland river. Wheresthere were at one
time 800 acres of rlcs;aahsow the carp have
eaten 1t literally root. Branch and seed
These places were once tie very best duck
grounds In the province, and now the ducks
avoid them. , D tsi,
The carp were not Introduced originally
into Lake Simcoe, but were confined in the
mill dam at Newmatilet,k The dam broke
and the carp got into LAKE Simcoe through
the Holland river. How to get them out
or destroy them passed any mans knowi-
edge, as they were the most tenacious Of
life under hard conditions and defied the
best laid traps. So; far as he knew there
was no carp in any OF the Muskoka lakes.
AS to the chances for black bass in the
lakes where carp abound, he thought they
The carp was not a fish eater like the pike
his mouth not being soapiaced that he could
enjoy this diversion. He was of the sucker
variety and destroyed other fish tribes by
eating their eggs. The black bass was well
armed to fight the carp Only eight DAYS
elapsed between the laying OF bass eggs
and the Matching out of the young fry and
during this critical period and while the fry
were too small to get out of the way of the
carp the parent bass remained on guard
threatened their progeny.
the bass, Mr.. Sheppard said, was the only
hsh which protected It's young in this way
and 1t was this pugnacity which made
ing the spawning season. At everything
that looked unusual or dangerous the bass
rushed pell nell. and consequently was i'm
paied on the first hook which came within
reach On this account the bass were par
tlcularly protected by close season during
the spawning season.
The carp needed no protection, jocularly
remarked Mr.. Sheppard. 1t had got into
international waters and become an inter-
national question for fishery experts, and
lucky would be the man who could devise
some means OF getting rid Of the carp fam
lily without destroying the other varieties.