The Amazing, Misunderstood White Amur

Enlarge Image Image Gallery LEFT: Ponds choked by excessive foliage are now an all-too-common sight. CENTER: Six-inch fingerlings of the white amur are stocked in overgrown lakes. RIGHT: The clear water of such "treated" lakelets speaks for itself. PHOTOS: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Until nine years ago, Bill and Harry Whiting ran an expensive, exclusive fish camp in northern Canada . . . one of the few regions "untouched" enough to offer the kind of angling their famous clients expected. In fact, the operation had been moved to the far north after the Whitings watched fishing in their native Minnesota decline until it no longer held much interest for the true sports fisherman.

The fate suffered by the brothers' own private trout pond in their hometown of Edina is an example of what was happening: As the area built up, fertilizer runoff from neighboring property drained into the water, causing excessive vegetation growth. Like many other people, the Whiting brothers used the recommended chemicals to kill the plants, but the dying foliage sucked up oxygen. . . a process which, in turn, suffocated the fish and eventually turned their lake into a dead body of water. Bill and Harry packed up and moved to Canada.

The same scenario repeats itself constantly all over North America. Records show that around 200,000 man-made lakes and ponds have succumbed to similar fates in the last 10 years.

"Sure," Bill Whiting said, "some of 'em were little more than puddles, but big reservoirs have been affected, too. For example, the 22,000-acre water supply of Houston, Texas is infested with 6,000 acres of hydrilla that's spreading at a rate of 254% a year. And the Lone Star State appropriated $50 million for waterweed-killing chemicals in 1978 alone."

A Natural Alternative

Meanwhile, though, Arkansas was conducting experiments in freshwater vegetation control with a fish called the white amur (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) or the "grass carp."

Actually this useful creature has been around for a long time. Marco Polo reported on the vegetarian fish, and there are accounts of the amur's being transported to Taiwan in 400 B.C. The Russians have used grass carp to control weeds and algae for 300 years, and the Chinese have utilized the fish to weed their rice fields — and as a major food source — for over 20 centuries!

Not long ago, the Egyptians stocked 45 million amur to clean up the Nile, and Holland (before three big oil companies stepped in with "easy" chemical solutions) researched the use of the fish to clear their canals.

Bill and his brother were so excited when they heard about the amazing biological tool that they sold out their Canadian operation and moved to Arkansas to learn from the Game and Fish Commission there how to reproduce and handle the fish . . . because, though the laws in other areas aren't always enforced, Arkansas is among the few states where it's legal to even possess a white amur.

That's right! This fast-growing, good-tasting, protein-packed weed-eater is currently outlawed in 32 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — seemingly because of a combination of business and political interests that justify their actions by quoting old wives' tales.

Certainly Arkansas, which has cut its expenditures for chemical vegetation control to practically zero, seems to have suffered no ill effects from letting the grass carp in. In fact, after nine years of utilizing the fish under many varied conditions, no adverse "fallout" on native populations or ecosystems has been noted. Furthermore, the state's fishing is still good. (According to the Arkansas Gazette, the "Land of Opportunity" has the highest ratio in the country of resident fishing licenses to total population.)

And — despite the often expressed worry that the amur might devastate waterfowl habitats — Stuggart, Arkansas is still considered the "duck capital of the world," having recently completed its most successful hunting season of the past 10 years. The state also disputes another of the doom-sayers' predictions by remaining a leader in the production of rice, which is — of course — an aquatic plant.