3 May 2016
The Australian politician who
declared war on Johnny Depp's dogs has a new enemy - the European carp.
Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime
minister, said the only way to get rid of the "bottom-dwelling,
mudsucking" fish was to unleash herpes on it.
The A$15m ($11m; £8m) eradication
program, dubbed "Carpageddon" by the government, aims to rid the
Murray-Darling Basin of carp.
Mr Joyce's spirited rant was met
with laughter in Australia's lower house.
Carp were first introduced to
Australia in 1859, but numbers exploded in the 1960s after an adapted
fish-farming strain was accidently released into the wild.
It's estimated carp make up
around 80-90% of the fish biomass within the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's
most important agriculture region.
The carp are prolific breeders
that compete with native fish.
Their toothless jaws mean they
need to feed at the bottom of rivers, which causes erosion and makes the water
turbid, reducing water quality.
Mr Joyce said the invasive
species was costing the Australian economy up to A$500m per year.
The federal government wants to release
cyprinid herpesvirus (carp herpesvirus) - which first appeared in Israel - into
the Murray River to kill around 95% of the carp.
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