SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – A recent catch in a lake straddling the Missouri and Arkansas border is causing concern among some fisheries biologists who say they don’t want the invasive fish disrupting the food chain.
The Springfield News-Leader reports two fishermen recently caught a 45-pound(20-kilogram) bighead carp while bowfishing on the Missouri side of Bull Shoals Lake.
Nathan Recktenwald is a fisheries biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. He identified the bighead carp as a fish that the department doesn’t want to find in its reservoirs. A native of Asia, the fish competes with other larval fish that eat zooplankton, which can disrupt the food chain.
He says it unclear how the fish got into the lake. Recktenwald says there’s no evidence of spawning and it seems to be an isolated incident.
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