Illinois investors, Chef Parola want to tackle Asian carp invasion
MICHIGAN—The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) continues to prepare for potential Asia
St. Louis Business Journal - by Kelsey Volkmann
Date: Monday, September 13, 2010, 1:18pm CDT
If you can’t beat ’em, eat ’ em.
That’s what a group of Metro East investors and a world-famous chef hope to do with the
invasive Asian carp, which has taken over the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and eaten so much
plankton, it’s decimating the populations of native game fish.
The big-headed carp, which can grow up to 100 pounds, was brought here 30 years ago from
China to help Kansas catfish farmers clean algae from their ponds. But flooding in the 1990s
caused the Asian carp to spread from the ponds to rivers and now the epidemic is the worst in
Illinois. MORE...,