Carp & Herpes Virus

[erad]

Picked up from another site - interesting...

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-with-carp-herpes-carpageddon/7405048

[Ian Sharpe]

A single drop of viral water in Lake Burley Griffin, the big man-made lake at the centre of Canberra, right next to Parliament House, could send belly-up an estimated 10,000 tonnes of carp in a single sitting week.

"Once the virus is out there there's no going back," Dr Loh says.

pretty scarey, but I guess they know what they are doing? (not). What about Barnaby, has their ever been a bigger goose in parliament?

[Dicko1]

A single drop of viral water in Lake Burley Griffin, the big man-made lake at the centre of Canberra, right next to Parliament House, could send belly-up an estimated 10,000 tonnes of carp in a single sitting week.

"Once the virus is out there there's no going back," Dr Loh says.

pretty scarey, but I guess they know what they are doing? (not). What about Barnaby, has their ever been a bigger goose in parliament?

Pity a single drop couldnt clean up the vermin in Parliament house....

[erad]

Now, fellas - this is about fish, not pollies. Not that there isn't a lot of fishy business in Partiament house anyway....

"A single drop of viral water in Lake Burley Griffin, the big man-made lake at the centre of Canberra, right next to Parliament House, could send belly-up an estimated 10,000 tonnes of carp in a single sitting week." Instead or CARP, I think they meant CRAP. Seriously, if the killr ate is so strong, the dead fish will be a major problem in every river where the carp currently are located. NOt sure about the Tilapia though - they pose an even worse threat than carp. They are aggressive and eat anything, and will wipe out everything in their area. And they are not far off - only 20 or 30 km from entering the upper reaches of the Murray Darling system.

[Just Cruzin]

What worries me is have they learnt from the past.
Does anyone remember the rabbits or the cane toads?
I'm all for getting rid of the carp, just hope they've done their homework.

[Dicko1]

What worries me is have they learnt from the past.
Does anyone remember the rabbits or the cane toads?
I'm all for getting rid of the carp, just hope they've done their homework.

It is designed to target just carp. Myxo for the rabbits was the same...problem was we relied on it to be used all the time and thus some rabbits developed an immunity. Introduce foxes so we can kill the rabbits and pretend we are back in jolly good England with our fox hounds..Yep...that worked well..NOT.Cane toads...well there is no known 100% solution at the moment. I dont think that you will see us importaning any critter to help get rid of our animals again..hopefully. Remember trout is anintroduced species and seems to be travelling along ok with no real effect on the waterways...apart from probably taking up shelter and food from native fish. People would be calling for blood if we decided to wipe out trout. Hope they kill all the carp..Mind you the Murray cod are having a field day now that they use it as a good food source. Waterways will contain a lot of dead carp but they will be bounce back quickly as they do after algal blooms, oxygen depletion and siltation. Hopefully. Until govts get some balls and really look after our waterways nature will always be behind the eightball. We have to learn to work with the land and water. Not control it. No wonder the Aboriginals lasted tens of thousands of years and mankind now has limited time left on this planet until she gets sick and dies completely.

[BruceandBobbi]

What worries me is have they learnt from the past.
Does anyone remember the rabbits or the cane toads?
I'm all for getting rid of the carp, just hope they've done their homework.

Domestic rabbits arrived with the First Fleet. Wild rabbits arrived in Tasmania in 1827. 24 rabbits were released in 1859 in Victoria.

Cane Toads were introduced in 1935 and Carp in the 1850s

The Carp Herpes virus is said to be species specific.

As an aside. Trout are not native to OZ.

[Just Cruzin]

Domestic rabbits arrived with the First Fleet. Wild rabbits arrived in Tasmania in 1827. 24 rabbits were released in 1859 in Victoria.

Cane Toads were introduced in 1935 and Carp in the 1850s

The Carp Herpes virus is said to be species specific.

As an aside. Trout are not native to OZ.

I wasn't asking for a history lesson, I was stating a fact that previous attempts to introduce a species to eradicate another had not gone well in the past.
I know all about the virus, I read about it 12 months ago and have been to a conferance that discussed the topic. It has not been tested in every possible situation, ans is not a guaranteed 100% kill rate.
Nature finds a way to survive, and any that do will more than likely become immune to the virus. I think a lot more research needs to be donr before they release it.

[Poita]

This topic has popped up previously on here from memory. CSIRO have been testing for over 10 years to ensure this ONLY targets Carp and no other species.
I for one am all for it. They are a HUGE pest to the Murray River in SA. When I went there a few weeks ago, we were literally pulling hundreds of little ones from our yabbie nets. They are in plague proportions. The sooner they are eliminated, the sooner the native fish have a chance to make a comeback and hopefully the river will clean up a bit as well as they stir up huge amounts of mud.

[RUGGA]

yabbie nets.

How did you go with the Yabbies? I have mates that have come home with 10's of Kgs in a matter of hours! Apparently the back waters are producing in abundance and are forecast to remain this way for a couple years

[Dicko1]

How did you go with the Yabbies? I have mates that have come home with 10's of Kgs in a matter of hours! Apparently the back waters are producing in abundance and are forecast to remain this way for a couple years

Been many years since I used to fish the murry. I used to taget the spiny freshwater cray. Bloody beautiful to eat. Seen plenty of yabbies too. Reckon if the carp start dying the yabbies will be growing to the size of sheep!!

[Merts]

I wasn't asking for a history lesson, I was stating a fact that previous attempts to introduce a species to eradicate another had not gone well in the past.
I know all about the virus, I read about it 12 months ago and have been to a conferance that discussed the topic. It has not been tested in every possible situation, ans is not a guaranteed 100% kill rate.
Nature finds a way to survive, and any that do will more than likely become immune to the virus. I think a lot more research needs to be donr before they release it.

The point is, making comparisons to the introduction of rabbits or cane toads is a false equivalence. There was ZERO scientific investigation done with either of those things, whereas the CSIRO has been working on this for over 10 years.

[Dicko1]

The point is, making comparisons to the introduction of rabbits or cane toads is a false equivalence. There was ZERO scientific investigation done with either of those things, whereas the CSIRO has been working on this for over 10 years.

Its been 25 years since I fished the Murry River but even then the bloody carp had ruines the place. I can remember fishing in my early teens and the water was crystal clear with many water plants and great fishing. The refin were up to 5 kg and cod a plenty. Wonderful country then. Now, thanks to dipshit pollies, cotton farmers, vermin, bogan campers and land clearing our once magnificent waterways are just drainage canals. The carp have to be cleaned out asap. Hopefully the CSRIO can get it sorted. Lucky to have such a good organisation as the dipshit pollies keep cutting their funding.

Heres some info
2. Will CyHV-3 be effective as a biocontrol agent?

CyHV-3 first appeared in Israel in 1998 and quickly spread throughout the world, killing-off common and koi carp. Ironically carp are farmed in many countries and are an important food source. So, while CyHV-3 has devastated carp farming, the overseas experience has demonstrated how it could be used successfully as a biocontrol agent here.
Testing of CyHV-3 in the high-security Fish Diseases Laboratory at our Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), in Geelong, Victoria, has proven that the same virus does in fact kill Australian carp, and it kills them fast.
The flip side is our rigorous testing to ensure that the virus won’t affect native Australian or important introduced species of fish. It has been shown to pose no danger to 13 native species such as Murray cod, various species of perch, eel and catfish, as well as a crustacean (yabbies) and a non-native fish species, the rainbow trout. Our work has shown that there are no clinical or pathological changes in these non-target animals, nor is there any evidence that the virus multiplies in these species.
Chickens, mice, frogs, turtles and water dragons have also been tested as representatives of a wider community of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. Again the virus has shown no effect on them which also makes us confident that it won’t affect that other major group of mammals – humans.
Based on lessons learnt from past use of viral biocontrol agents for invasive vertebrates, we expect that CyHV-3 will have the greatest impact in the first couple of years after release. After that, its effectiveness may be diminished, but not lost, as virus and host adapt to each other.
Therefore, we need an integrated pest management program that utilizes other methods to complement our virus. These include new broad-scale technologies such as ‘daughterless’ technology to create male-only populations, as well as traditional regional methods such as trapping, the commercial collection of carp, and controlling access of carp to breeding grounds.

[Poita]

How did you go with the Yabbies? I have mates that have come home with 10's of Kgs in a matter of hours! Apparently the back waters are producing in abundance and are forecast to remain this way for a couple years

We were at Lake Bonney and didn't catch a single Yabbie, but I have heard plenty of reports of people catching bulk quantities!

[RUGGA]

We were at Lake Bonney and didn't catch a single Yabbie, but I have heard plenty of reports of people catching bulk quantities!

Ah, Lake Bonny, prob not the ideal spot for large quantities of Yabbies but a nice place to camp for a few days.