Australia does n’t have the good chronicle when it comes to invading species . One such animal is the European carp , which has spread out throughout much of Australia ’s waterway . Now , in anunlikely alliance , both environmentalist and fisherman are calling for approval to be allow for a “ koi herpes virus virus ” to be release . extremely specific to the European carp , the virus bear on the skin and kidneys , disrupting the Pisces the Fishes ’s water system balance . After about seven mean solar day of contagion , during which they eliminate the virus on to other carp , the fish start to show symptom and die within 24 hour .
The worry , however , is that the computer virus could have unintended effect . This is why theCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisationhas spend the last eight years test the virus in a secure facility on a whole magnitude of species , from amphibians and birds to other aboriginal Pisces the Fishes species . They now claim that they are happy that the virus will not be capable to cross the species barrier .
Carp remotion is presently reliant on techniques like this , such as netting . Melbourne Water / Flickr CC BY - NC - ND 2.0
The carp ’s highly invasive nature in non - native habitats is mainly due to its demeanor . The fish are known to sit at the bottom of waterways and weave though the sediment , eat any plant and other food they might come across . This dramatically alters the environment , forestall the growth of aboriginal aquatic flora while also removing the habitat in which aboriginal Pisces coinage normally spawn . This , merge with their fast reproductive rates , has meant they areoften compared to rabbits , which also provoke Australia .
The Murray - Darling river basin in south eastern Australia has been particularly hard reach by the carp . By some counts , it ’s estimated that the invasive Pisces make up an astonishing80 percentof all fish biomass . At a undivided location on the Murray River , where there is a barrier to block off the carp from traveling upstream , around 140,000 metric ton ( 154,000 tons ) of carp were caught and remove over the grade of one year . The pace at which they multiply means that it is almost impossible to angle them all out at current levels . It is hoped that if the computer virus is stick in , it will reduce the telephone number of carp to more manageable levels , where other methods such as netting might then be able to remove those depart behind .
But as mentioned , Australia does n’t on the dot have a great course record when it descend to using biological control for pest . One of the most mellow - profile case of when this tactic can go amiss is from when the country determine to introduce cane toads so as to control the cane beetle that had been champ its way through the nation ’s kale crop . Unfortunately , while the toads did fertilise on the mallet , they also turn out to be highly toxic to the majority of Australia ’s aboriginal wildlife and have now spread out right across the country . It is for good reasons such as these that officials are reluctant to potentially iterate the same mistake again .
