The humble Asian carp is causing big trouble in the U.S. Last
month, the Supreme Court refused Michigan's request to order the
immediate closure of shipping locks near Chicago to keep Asian
carp out of the Great Lakes. For decades, the carp have been
steadily making their way up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers
toward Lake Michigan. In December, Illinois officials dumped
poison into a shipping canal--killing tens of thousands of fish
--to stop the carp's progress. A single Asian carp was found
after the kill. Instead of so much carping over carp, let's
focus on the real problem: fish farms. Asian carp would not now
be making such a mess if they hadn't been brought to the U.S. by
catfish farmers looking for a cheap way to keep their ponds free
of algae. In the early 1990s, flooding caused catfish farm ponds
to overflow their banks, and carp escaped into local waterways.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Asian carp saga is
important because it illustrates the dangers of fish farming.
Now that half of the