Invasive species call Ontario home

May 9, 2011 46d Comments

Asiancrap

In today’s Ottawa SUN, Antonello Artuso reports on Invasive Species entering the province at an alarming rate:

“The province has more invasive plants and fish than the rest of the country and the government may need special powers to go onto private property to deal with the problem, says the Ontario Invasive Species Strategic Plan, posted this week on the province’s environmental registry for public comment.”

This week, the Ontario Invasive Species Strategic Plan was unveiled on the province’s environmental registry for public comment.

I wonder at this rate how long before the Asian Carp enters our waters and completely wipes out everything in its path?

Outdoorsguy

Here is Antonello’s article, if you haven’t read it:

http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/05/08/the-aliens-have-landed

46 thoughts on “Invasive species call Ontario home”

  1. The Asian Carp may have breached the electric barrier installed along the canal in Chicago to keep them out of Lake Michigan. Once they enter the Great Lakes, it is probably just a matter of time before they appear in the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers. The impact could be devastating. And boaters will have to start dodging the Silver Asian Carp, which jump out of the water when approached by power boats.

    1. fishr, are you saying you know they have, indeed, breached this barrier, because the last time I looked into it, they had NOT..at least as of 1 year ago when I was researching for my first book..Weird Facts about Fishing – I included a section on Asian carp and other undesirables.

      Anyhow, I truly hope this ‘scrap’ has not made it past Chicago..as this would most certainly spell the end of our waterways as we know them…plus that, the Asian Carp have no prob with cold water, in fact, they flourish in it!!

      This is not the sort of news one hopes to hear at the onset of trout season…

      Outdoorsguy

      1. Ok fishr, it turns out you may be correct. There is some evidence to show that Asian Carp have already made it past the Chicago dam and headed towards Lake Michigan.

        Scientists are considering a high-powered water gun to be used at the Chicago locks as a possible deterrent for Asian carp. Conservation groups are saying, though, the only way to prevent migration of these fish into the Great Lakes, is to permanently sever the Mississippi and Great Lakes Watershed.

        But alas…. if they have already breached this barrier, then it would be like ‘closing the gate after the cows have gotten out.’

        Man, the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach…do you realize that once these friggin carp took over the Mississippi water shed, it was only a matter of years to where today they now make up 90% of the total fish population in those waters. And now they’re bonking boaters in the head left and right!

        Think I’ll go bury my own head until the nightmare is over….try to protect myself from a jumping carp

        Outdoorsguy

  2. The Toronto Sun
    DATE: 2011.05.10
    PAGE: 12

    ——————————————————————————–

    Hunt for invaders ‘serious’ But province will respect property

    ——————————————————————————–

    Ontario is more focused on gaining voluntary partners in the battle against invasive species than treading on private property rights, Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey says.

    As reported in the Sun, the Ontario Invasive Species Strategic Plan posted online last week recommends giving provincial officials powers to go onto private property to look for alien plants and animals. ” It’s a proposal at this point,” Jeffrey said Monday. “Obviously, there’s some contentious language in the report.”

    Jeffrey said she’s interested in working cooperatively with the farming, fishing and forestry sectors, as well as other levels of government and jurisdictions, to reduce the threat of invasive species.

    Average Ontarians also need to learn about the small measures they can take to ensure they’re not importing species through seemingly innocent acts like dumping their bait bucket into a lake.

    “This is very serious,” Jeffries said. “If we don’t get it right, we spend a lot of money after the fact and people can lose their livelihoods based on bad decisions.”

    The Invasive Species Strategic Plan reveals that the province has far more invasive plants and fish than the rest of the country.

    Millions of dollars are consumed dealing with the problem, often with very little success.

    For instance, Ontario and its partners spent $460,000 in an ultimately futile attempt to eradicate round goby from Pefferlaw Creek to keep it from spreading to Lake Simcoe.

    The ongoing fight to keep the Asian carp out of Ontario is a prime example of the kinds of resources and focus required to maintain environmental balance and protect economically important fisheries, Jeffrey said.

  3. This is terrible news, if they have in fact breached the electric fence. For years now they have identified that dam in Chicago as the port of entry into the great lakes and all the facts were known. I can’t understand why they don’t do everything possible to eliminate the threat.

    There is currently a team of Free Press reporters tracking the progress of the Asian Carp to lake Michigan. It’s a 13-day trek going on until May 13th.
    http://www.freep.com/article/20110502/NEWS06/110501015

    1. Rob, thats a good question..Ive never heard of anyone eating them as they do with the Common Carp.

      Outdoorsguy

  5. panic panic run for the hills. if it was not for the zebra muscles the lake would still be poluted , big deal if they sepend 400000 dollars on protection to the entrance of the water, what would they have had to spend if they wanted to get the polution out of the drinking water ? and as far as round golbys go good im glad they are here there is no smelt or alwives for the salmon trout or walleye to eat so golbeys are the food of choice now . Yes the fish are eating them so lets just let these organizations thicken there wallets with money , have we not proven yet that global warming is a joke, this to will turn out to be blown way way way out of proportion

    1. Ok Chessy, that’s well and good..and you do have some valid points.

      The Asian carp, however, is a beast of a different nature than the round goby..and though they may have proven we’ve ‘learned to adapt’ to the aftermath of Zebra Mussells..but we will surely not adapt to the Asian Carp aftermath..

      Outdoorsguy

  6. you ever here of koi herpies it is what caused the mass die off of carp in the kawartha lakes an it killed alot . im sure they can modifie something to get ride of the asian carp they just have to wait till the money is dried up.

    1. Hey Chessy, maybe a nasty strain of ‘Koi AIDS’ would work even better..hehe

      Outdoorsguy

  7. naw they already got that under control… you can live 20 years now ….. thats too long for these carp.. maybe just maybe if our governement got off there a$$ and told certain cultures that they could not do certain things and stick with it our canada would not be so bad off…….. i just listened to our mp talk about bringing doctors to work in ontario and how it was a good thing that the ontario government was bringing new doctors to ontario and that with the hireing of new doctors every person would have a family doctor…. till the one administrator leaned over the other one and said does he relise that there is a wack of doctors retiring this year. so they are going to break even ??? people in the country know absolutly $hit about what goes on …. i have spent the last month in a half in the hospital and the mistakes that are made ( some seriouse ones ) because the nurses are over worked, nope because they work to many 12 hour days, the nurses are acctually have less people to look after now then they did a year ago, its the long days…. sorry for the rant ..

  8. I don’t want invaisive species in my waters, I understand that, but what’s so bad about these Carp?

  9. I think most invasive species are terrible. Just consider sea lampreys and the huge amount of damage they have done to the fisheries in the upper 4 great lakes, where they are not native.

    The asian carp crowd-out native fish species. As Jeff noted, they now comprise 90% of the fish biomass in the Mississippi River system. If they eventually get into the St. Lawrence, Ottawa and Rideau rivers, we can probably kiss most of the native game fish goodbye.

    The silver carp are very skittish and jump up to 10 feet out of the water when approached by power boats. They grow to large sizes and quite a few people have been injured by them in recent years. Fishermen in the U.S. have even resorted to tournaments where they catch the jumping carp near their boats using landing nets. The carp are then used as fertilizer. I’m not sure if they are good eating but apparently they are very bony.

  10. AT iggy invasive species in my waters … are boats full of people that don’t follow the rules to come to our country

    1. Not only are these carp like ‘unwanted guests who come to this country and dont follow the rules’..once they’re here they invite in more friends and then kick out most of your friends and relatives and take over the place!

      Outdoorsguy

  11. LMFAO the Ontario Invasive Plant Council is a non profit organization …. it is in the same building as the ofah has the same mailing address and the same phone number . first they are out for the hunters now they are out for the people that own land…… oh ya there is a invasive plant seminar being held, but it will cost you to go. so much for looking after the citizens of ontario just get your money out. we will take your money and show YOU how to eradicted them ….. i will do it for free… if you se something in your yard you dont like buy ROUND UP AND SPRAY IT … send your donation for that information to chessy in care of jeff morrison, Dont worry Jeff i will give you a cut…

  12. chessy said: “panic panic run for the hills. if it was not for the zebra muscles the lake would still be poluted , big deal if they sepend 400000 dollars on protection to the entrance of the water, what would they have had to spend if they wanted to get the polution out of the drinking water ?”

    The great lakes are still polluted despite the fact that zebra mussels are present. They don’t filter out all contaminants. Our technology has advanced to the point where we don’t need zebra mussels to filter our drinking water. The 400K plus dollars spent combating these mussels at water intakes could be better spent elsewhere.

    “and as far as round golbys go good im glad they are here there is no smelt or alwives for the salmon trout or walleye to eat so golbeys are the food of choice now . ”

    The populations of smelt and alewives have declined because the plankton they feed upon have been drastically reduced by the presence of zebra mussels. Round gobies may be beneficial because they eat zebra mussels are a source of food for gamefish, but they are also causing a decline in small, native fish species.

  13. There was a typo in my previous post. It should read ” Round gobies may be beneficial because they eat zebra mussels AND are a source of food for gamefish, but they are also causing a decline in small, native fish species.”

  14. the world changes every day, should we try not to change it? Sure, but it’s still going to change, should we panic? I doubt it. Where I moose hunt, there used to be moose, now there are deer and moose, in my lake at the cottage, there used to be Pike, now there are Smallmouth Bass and Pike, big deal, the world changes. I’ll panic when we get alligators in the Great Lakes.

    Chessy, I thought you couldn’t buy Round Up any more.

  15. fishr, I realize that gobies aren’t native, but do you know what else causes small native fish pops to decline, bigger fish like pike bass and walleye, it’s called the circle of life, if gobies get too populated, they get eaten, by the same species that would have eaten the small native fish

    I’m sure you already knew this

  16. @ Iggy,

    Change is fine when the results are positive, but with invasive species, the outcome is often very negative.

    Invasives can upset the finely balanced circle of life. They can cause the extinction of native species, which I don’t think is a good thing. In many cases, they don’t have enough effective predators in their new environments, so their populations explode. Zebra mussels are a good example. Gobies and diving birds feed on them but their numbers have still increased exponentially.

    I have fished many brook trout lakes on the Quebec side of the border. In many cases, the trout disappeared from these lakes because bass, panfish, minnows or other fish species were introduced. I would rather fish for trout.

  17. @IGGY round up is still around, just picked a 10 liter jug of concentrate(use at 1% solution ) for a guy who is planting a food plot, weed spray is still avalible to (you just have to know who to talk to )

  20. @ Rob St Denis your getting ripped off….. if your paying 150 for it …. round up is just a trade name (like tylonol or asprin ).what you are looking for is a product that has the same active ingredient ( glysophos ) that is what kills the plants the rest is just filler. usually between 360 to 420 grams per liter

    Iggy if you need some mabey jeff can give you my email adress and we can talk. What do you need do you need round up (kills every thing ) or weed killer that just kills weeds and leaves the grass alone (more money now due to it being band that what it use to be )

  21. You know 25-30 yrs ago we used to go to huge carp tournaments on the St Lawrence with our bows. It was nothing to shoot upwards of 20 a day. They would then be weighed and thrown into the backs of trucks and plowed into the fields. There would be anywhere from 300-1000 participants from Canada and the USA . You don’t hear them talk about them being a problem now , but back then, the word was there would be no fish left after the carp ate all the eggs from the other fish. So my point is will they be as much of a threat as is assumed.

  23. @ Paul,

    I recently watched a video where bow fishermen were shooting asian carp from their speeding power boats while the carp were jumping out the water. Perhaps that will become a sport in the Ottawa area one day. Common carp, which are found in the St. Lawrence, have also been present in the Mississippi River watershed for a long time, but they didn’t cause as much trouble as the newly introduced asian carp.

  24. funny you mentioned that, last week I got invited to go on one of these bow fishing trips on the St Lawrence, and I accepted but I’m not sure exactly when it is, I sure hope it’s not too soon, I was at the cottage on the weekend and the black flies are out, they just started and they got a huge feast of me while I put out my dock in the water, I don’t think standing on the deck of a boat at full draw with black flies biting me would be all that fun

  26. Lately the biggest invasive species I’ve been dealing with are the asian tiger mosquitoes … they really leave a bugger or a bite.

  27. This weekend is the traditional opening weekend for black flies and mosquitoes’ human hunt and feast. I expect their numbers to be at all time highs in the woods this year. Be aware and well protected.

  28. they were real bad at our cottage near Wakefield last weekend but I have a buddy that just came back from Algonquin Park on Sunday from a five day canoe/fishing trip and said there were no bugs at all. I’m hoping the hold off for a few more days as we are headed up there today and will be doing a lot of portaging.

    I was putting in my dock last weekend wearing a head net and still got bit in the neck ears and head, they squeeze in any little opening and gnaw. Man I can take mosquitoes but not black flies

    1. Iggy, we just got back last night from 5 days north of the Park, on the QC-side, and not only were there no bugs..we never got a drop of rain and I even came back with a suntan..

      Oh yeah, and some darn nice trout too…will post something tomorrow

      Outdoorsguy

    1. you’re headed to the Park?

      Better bring the bug dope, they were just starting yesterday when we were packing up the tent.

      Water surface temp is still very cold up there..ranged from 53 – 55 degrees F.

      Outdoorsguy

    1. …the one where the trout are really biting of course…hehe

      I’ve heard it said that 55 – 60 is optimal for brookies..and we also need to keep in mind
      that many lakes are stratified; so that spring turnover may not even be settled until 55 degrees or so.

      I have personally noticed more action in the 58 – 60 degree F surface temp range.

      Fishr or Maple, would you guys agree??

      Outdoorsguy

  31. Ah man, trout fishing sounds like a great time too. I’m leaving for 3 days on the Ottawa camping and fishing. MayRun (or May 2-4) I think is my favourite long weekend. Well, they’re all great, but there’s something to be said about unofficial start of summer after such a long winter. It’s also about the anticipation of the summer ahead and the plans that have already been made, and the ones that are still being created. Although I’ve been camping already, this for me is really the begining of the summer.

    Can’t wait to get out there tomorrow!

  32. Jeff,

    I have heard that the ideal water temperature for brookies is 58 degrees F. Their comfort zone ranges from 54 – 64 F and their upper limit of tolerance is 72 F.

    I will be fishing a wilderness brook trout lake in Quebec tomorrow, and expect to be massacred by black flies.

    1. fishr, when you return I will expect a full report on your wilderness trout lake adventure..please feel free to send some photos too…and of course, you do not need to divulge where that lake is..I know how that goes.

      Outdoorsguy

  33. Jeff, I caught some nice brookies on Monday, but didn’t fish that long because the black flies were really bad.

  34. While we believe that the goby are a good source of food for the other larger species, the biggest problem is the toxin’s that accumulate in them from eating the zebra muscles are then passed on to the larger predatory fish and eventually we won’t be able to eat anything out of the great lakes. Everyone should be doing their part to rid the lakes of this fish

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