While they can be very popular sportfish in some parts of the world, and have a small following here in the U.S., carp are generally considered a serious nuisance to most anglers and water users in America.  This is particularly true in the Midwest, where carp have taken over a large percentage of lakes and ponds, mucking up the bottom and destroying plant life, making it hard for other fish to survive.  You can read more about carp in one of my previous blog posts, entitled Carp…Those Pesky Critters!

Although carp have destroyed many midwestern lake ecosystems, University of Minnesota researcher Peter Sorensen believes that it doesn’t have to be that way.  With support from a number of different user groups and agencies, Sorensen has begun research on potential methods to eliminate carp in lakes. 

Efforts to remove carp from lakes can be successful, but require huge amounts of time and labor, and sometimes aren’t cost effective.  Sorensen is working on ways to change this, like developing pheromones to lure carp to a central capture location, or create scenarios where other fish eat juvenile carp.  Time will tell whether or not such methods can prove to be effective, but if they are, they will benefit people with carp problems all around the world.

Read more about the potentially groundbreaking research here