The silver carp is a freshwater cyprinid fish that is a native of China and Eastern Siberia. The bigheaded carp is also a freshwater fish that migrated from the floodplain lakes of eastern Asia, from southern China to the Amur River system. Both fish have large, scales heads with large mouths and eyes laid low on the sides of the heads. They can weigh up to 143 pounds and, on average, are as long as 43 inches. The Asian Carp were introduced to the United States and the Mississippi River Basin in the late 1970’s. There are many different issues that the predatory Asian carp posses to the water source, primarily the Great Lakes. The different issues that the carp fish hold are that they eliminate food for other species, the excrete up to half of what they eat, emit toxins into the water, populate twice as fast as other species, and they eliminate the recreation activities for people. Due to these issues affecting the ecosystems, people have initiated acts to help with reducing the number of carp in the freshwater systems. They have come to the use of hydroelectric barriers, electric fencing, and commercial fishing to increase the amount of consumption of the fish.…show more content… With that, they end up eliminating food for other species, causing the altering of the food web. Their diet consists of snails, mussels, and other invertebrates that the native fish depend on. Not only does their diet consist of smaller animals, but also their diet can include any other native fish in the water that they begin to invade. The bigheaded carp can eat up to 40% of its own its own body weight. When the amount of plants, mussels, and plankton are lowered in the lakes and rivers, the ecosystem becomes unbalanced and the native species that depend on the food sources begin to
