- 14 April 2015
Giant Asian carp were filmed propelling themselves through the air at a college rowing team in Missouri, US. Why were they doing it, asks Tom Heyden.
They’ve been called the “Terminators of the fish world”. They’ve been accused of “bludgeoning boaters”. It’s fair to say Asian carp have attracted a pretty bad reputation. And when an innocent team of young rowers are apparently ambushed by them, perhaps that’s understandable. The scenes look like a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, resembling some sort of aquatic apocalypse.
The biggest Asian carp can weigh more than 100lbs (45kg) and stretch 4ft long, explains Viv Shears, the director of VS Fisheries. “Imagine if one of those hits you,” he says. “There’s certainly been cases of people being knocked out of boats [or] knocked unconsciousness.” Incidents like these have not helped the Asian carp’s public image. “Gang of Flying Asian Carp Mount Aerial Attack,” was how one article reported the video.
The answer
- They jump out of the water not to attack but to escape perceived danger
- These powerful but non-predatory fish typically feed near the surface
But the ferocious terminology can be somewhat misleading. “It’s not an aggressive attack, it’s an escape mechanism,” explains Shears. The carp get spooked by a boat’s movement, triggering a fight or flight reaction, he says. And given their lack of any killer instinct, adds Shears, they opt for the latter. “Often the quickest way out of that situation is to go airborne.” The first carp to jump at the perceived predator then sparks the sort of mass anxiety attack reminiscent of a Tom and Jerry scene involving a room full of mousetraps.
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