Traverse City, MI - A fish importer has been fined $50,000 for trying to haul a truckload of live Asian carp into Canada, including one of the species threatening to invade the Great Lakes.
Feng Yang pleaded guilty recently in Windsor, Ontario, to possessing fish species banned under provincial law. Inspectors found more than 4,000 pounds of bighead and grass carp last November in tanks on his flatbed truck after he crossed the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit into Windsor, said Bill Ingham, a conservation officer with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
It was the second conviction for Yang, whose company is in Markham, Ontario. The fine was the largest ever in Ontario for violation of the ban, Ingham said.
He said Yang bought the carp from dealers in the southern U.S. They're a popular item in Asian community markets in the Toronto area, Ingham said.
The case underscores the complexity of preventing Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, where the voracious invaders could out-compete native species for plankton and jeopardize the $7 billion fishing industry, said Marc Gaden, spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
"We have a very weak system in the U.S. when it comes to importation and movement of species that could be harmful to ecosystems and the economy," Gaden said.
The debate over how to protect the Great Lakes has focused on Chicago-area waterways infested with bighead and silver carp that have migrated up the Mississippi River and its tributaries since escaping from Deep South fish farms in the early 1970s.
Legislation introduced in Congress last week calls for an expedited study of how to separate the Mississippi and Great Lakes watersheds to prevent species migration. Five states are suing in federal court to close Chicago navigational locks that could give the carp an opening to Lake Michigan.
But the carp could find other pathways to the Great Lakes. Some Asian cultures have traditions of releasing live fish into waterways on special occasions, Ingham said.
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