On Wednesday the 25th of July I attended a webinar about the research that has been conducted with the killer koi virus. It was provided courtesy of the Australian Biosecurity Intelligence Net-work (ABIN). Veterinary virologist Dr Ken McColl provided some background, and recent progress, on an Invasive Animals CRC-funded project entitled “Koi Herpesvirus – a potential biological control agent for carp in Australia”.
Despite many failed attempts at utilising biological warfare to control vertebrate “pests”, Australia seems to want to do it again. It was said that the exotic killer herpesvirus could be released into the wild in Australia in as little as 5 years if some scientists and fisherfolk lobbyists could have their own way.
Carp are thought to be the reason for the rarity of native Australian fish because in some water bodies, as they can account for up to 90% of the biomass. But are they the pest that everyone makes them out to be? Are we blindly accepting this assumption that they have out competed the native fishes of their habitat and are destroying the environment? Is that finding a cause or effect? Are carp merely scapegoats to cover the fact that natural environmental changes (decreased rainfall) and human-related activities (diverting water for irrigating farms, damming, livestock damaging river banks, recreational activities, fertiliser, herbicide, pesticide and other chemical run-offs) may have caused significant changes to the aquatic environment that only the carp can survive and flourish under such conditions?
Any fish keeper can tell you that carp have soft lips and they are not territorial or aggressive. How then can they outcompete native Australian carnivorous fishes like the silver perch and Murray cod? These native fish are among the top predators and they are highly territorial and aggressive. What’s more is that they can eat carp for a meal. And how are carp more harmful to the environment than the non-native trout and salmon (again, top predators) that are regularly stocked in pristine rivers for the purposes of fishing? The fecundity of the carp would create a ready supply of food for the native fishes.
What could it mean for the fish in terms if animal welfare? What could it mean for non-target fish such as your beloved kois in your backyard? Will the government allow us to import the vaccine to protect our prized fish from certain death?
Could Australia find a use for this fish? Live export to improve genetic stocks in their native Europe? Sustainable food fish aquaculture for local consumption or export? Fertiliser? Coarse fishing?
Australia could remain the only place in the world with a carp population that is free from so many of the killer diseases. In terms of food security, should we be protecting the humble carp rather than release the killer virus amongst them?
Before releasing this KHV, I propose several ways of studying this phenomenon of high carp populations in certain water bodies to ascertain what is actually happening:
1. Conduct a full water quality analysis and compare this with historic data and with the respective fishes’ optimal ranges.
2. Different fish species can be grown in tanks utilising the waters from the water bodies to see if it had any impact on the health of the different fish species, measuring growth rate, reproductive ability, disease resistance, etc.
3. Several different fish species could be introduced into the different waterways and tracked to see how they fare.
Australia and its aquatic fauna should not become an experiment.
Thanks Richmond. We had a discussion relating to KHV last night at our KSWA meeting. One other prerequisite to wholesale killing of carp must be a controlled release in a contained water body containing carp. Base line water quality perameters taken at the time of release and then exactly 1 year intervals to objectively measure any water quality improvement – which will obviously be nil (and no other restoration works to sabotage the results) We have asked the KSWA committee to get on the front foot with this one and request this of the Ag Dept. before there is an “accidental” release like the Cilisi virus with rabbits.
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You’ll have to contact the Dept of Fisheries, not the Ag Dept. Also, it’s Canberra rather than WA Fisheries.
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contact narrandera fisheries nsw who have some data on native fish populations and carp,… the correlation between carp numbers and native fish is not a strong one. However degraded water and carp is a strong correlation- they are the last fish standing in polluted waters. Native fish fare poorly with pollution- check ecotox data- carp regularly most resilient compared to other species.
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in my opinion why would you risk not posatively knowing what other species also are in danger ,releasing something deadly like khv,we should always look to other ways and research more into this problem and keep looking for other means and ways to test the effectiveness and/or consequence of what we do to combat any problems in our water ways. we should always look to enviromentaly safe conclusions to problems first rather than taking the heavy handed approach which could destroy other species,,carp are not a predatory fish and is beyond my understanding why carp are accused of destroying native species.
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Once the disease is introduced, you can never get rid of it, ever. The Australian government has wasted enough money trying to eradicate this species and it would be better spent on supporting the aquaculture industry instead.
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