Too many carps have proliferated in Australia and they want to be destroyed by infecting the herpes virus.
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Jones (Barnaby Joyce) voiced a radical way of dealing with carp, which bred in abundance along the rivers of the country and make up about 80-90% of all biomass in the Murray-Darling Basin. A senior official proposes to infect the fish with the cyprinid herpesvirus herpes virus , which is dangerous for carps, and plans to allocate $ 11 million for this program, called by journalists “Carpageddon”.
Despite the fact that the speech of Barnaby Jones causes contradictory feelings and was even met with bewilderment and laughter of his colleagues, the Australian government confirmed the allocation of budget funds to fight carp. The Australian Scientific and Applied Research Association (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO) managed to prepare thoroughly for carpogheddon and published the results of its seven-year research at the beginning of this year. According to these data, cyprinid herpesvirus infection of carps is safe for other fish species and will not lead to possible environmental problems for other species.
The problem was studied scrupulously. The carp fell into the wild conditions of the river system of Australia during the floods of 1974 in the city of Mildura, located on the banks of the Murray River, and bred instantly. The source of the "contamination" was a fish farm, where a carp breed illegally imported into the state of Victoria, called Boolarra, was raised. The problem was aggravated by the fact that the carp is extremely hardy to all sorts of adverse conditions, the fish that feeds on the caviar of local fish and thereby reduces their numbers.
Some time ago, they tried to fight carp with the help of genetic manipulations - attempts were made to remove only males in order to avoid natural reproduction, but these efforts did not lead to a meaningful result. As a result, it was decided to turn to a more effective way - the herpes virus - but Barnaby Jones himself openly admitted that he would have to solve another difficult problem - what to do with "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons" of dead fish.
It is noteworthy that Australian legislation pays great attention to the control of species introduced into the country. In early April, Deputy Prime Minister publicly condemned the wife of Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, who brought two dogs to Australia without going through a two-week quarantine and threatened her with a 10-year imprisonment or a fine of 265,000 Australian dollars.
Despite the fact that the speech of Barnaby Jones causes contradictory feelings and was even met with bewilderment and laughter of his colleagues, the Australian government confirmed the allocation of budget funds to fight carp. The Australian Scientific and Applied Research Association (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO) managed to prepare thoroughly for carpogheddon and published the results of its seven-year research at the beginning of this year. According to these data, cyprinid herpesvirus infection of carps is safe for other fish species and will not lead to possible environmental problems for other species.
The problem was studied scrupulously. The carp fell into the wild conditions of the river system of Australia during the floods of 1974 in the city of Mildura, located on the banks of the Murray River, and bred instantly. The source of the "contamination" was a fish farm, where a carp breed illegally imported into the state of Victoria, called Boolarra, was raised. The problem was aggravated by the fact that the carp is extremely hardy to all sorts of adverse conditions, the fish that feeds on the caviar of local fish and thereby reduces their numbers.
Some time ago, they tried to fight carp with the help of genetic manipulations - attempts were made to remove only males in order to avoid natural reproduction, but these efforts did not lead to a meaningful result. As a result, it was decided to turn to a more effective way - the herpes virus - but Barnaby Jones himself openly admitted that he would have to solve another difficult problem - what to do with "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons" of dead fish.
It is noteworthy that Australian legislation pays great attention to the control of species introduced into the country. In early April, Deputy Prime Minister publicly condemned the wife of Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, who brought two dogs to Australia without going through a two-week quarantine and threatened her with a 10-year imprisonment or a fine of 265,000 Australian dollars.