Australia considers mass herpes release for population control

Australia is considering the widespread release of the herpes virus as part of a population control push. The population the nation wants to control is the European Carp, an imported fish that thrives in local waterways and lakes because native animals don't compete for the food their bottom-feeding habits secure. Some …

[Anonymous Coward]

I could carp on about how there is a time and a plaice for this sort of thing but giving herpes to fish is not a good idea, I cod you not. After much sole searching I think that it's not such a brill idea and more a red herring to solve the problem.

[wolfetone]

Sardine what you did there.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Wolfetone

"I sawfish what you did there" would also have been an acceptable response.

[Ambivalous Crowboard]

Written

from the sole. Well done.

[imanidiot]

Re: Written

Whale said!

[NomNomNom]

that comment just made me sea horse

[Allan George Dyer]

Gar! So many puns so quickly. I couldn't possibly knock you off your perch.

[x 7]

" I couldn't possibly knock you off your perch"

you could if you had a pike

[imanidiot]

You are all obviously just fishing for puns now. But it looks like your floundering.

[x 7]

"fishing for puns"

best way to do that is by trolling...sorry trawling.......

[I sound like Peter Griffin!!]

What ARE you all barbelling on about? Many a robustus argument have been offered, but none of us are any the tiger for it..

[PhilipN]

Close your eyes and make a wish

Has there EVER been a targeted local species eradication project which did not have unintended, unforeseen and horrific consequences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

The dinosaurs?

[ZSn]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

When the dinosaurs were killed off mammals eventually took over leading inexorable to Donald Trump. I rest my case.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

...mammals eventually took over leading inexorable to Donald Trump

I'll believe Donald Trump is a mammal when I've seen him dissected.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"I'll believe Donald Trump is a mammal when I've seen him dissected."

The thing on top of his head is a mammal. Probably.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

No, it's a caterpillar.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

OK, I was wrong.

Gonna have nightmares after looking at that pic, tho...

[PNGuinn]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"I'll believe Donald Trump is a mammal when I've seen him dissected"

I NEED MIND BLEACH.

[PNGuinn]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish @ ZSn

Who is this inexorable if whom you speak?

I would beg to point out, however, that in the order of evolutionary regression, O'Bambi got there first.

[cray74]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Has there EVER been a targeted local species eradication project which did not have unintended, unforeseen and horrific consequences?

There are a number of supposed successes in eliminating invasive species from islands. Clipperton Island's eradication sounds like the basis for a blockbuster movie: one man alone on an island with just his shotgun faces off against a horde of invasive aliens. The happy ending: bacon, lots of bacon.

10 successful cases

[joed]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Successful - not sure but Australia has a history of using virus to control rabbit population. Still around and who knows what got other species got affected

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Rabbit Control

Successful - not sure but Australia has a history of using virus to control rabbit population. Still around and who knows what got other species got affected

When Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease ("Calicivirus") was introduced here 25 years ago the effects were fantastic. It's like Ebola for bunnies.

Pet rabbits (obviously) and cats should be vaccinated against it but otherwise it wasn't a disaster.

[Charles Manning]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Eradication has been successful on small islands in NZ, but only on very small islands up to a few square km.

There certainly are unintended consequences when eliminating various species because they've often become part of the new modified ecosystem. Removing them does not always mean the ecosystem reverts to what it was; it might get worse.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

" Removing them does not always mean the ecosystem reverts to what it was;"

There's no such thing as a "balance of nature" - ecosystems are never under pressure to move back to where they were. If you want that you have to push them there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Nazism???

[Tony Haines]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Erm... yes. Some examples:

Globally eliminated:

* Smallpox

* Rinderpest

Locally eliminated, no horrific consequences

* goats or pigs from islands (multiple examples of this)

* rats (e.g. Campbell Island - no local species of rodent)

* sandbur (a grass), from Laysan

Locally eliminated, significant short-term expected deleterious consequences

* rats (many, many times)

* foxes

If you're trying to clear a small island of large animals, you can shoot them, basically unforseen horrific consequence-free.

If you've got a medium-size island full of smaller animals like rats, poisoning can work - but you probably need a decent breeding colony of everything else which might also eat it.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

If you're trying to clear a small island of large animals, you can shoot them, basically unforseen horrific consequence-free.

I'm not sure about that. I know you're talking about a very narrow case, but common sense dictates that there will be two immediate knock-ons:

* species that were in direct competition for similar foodstuffs or territory will expand to fill the vacated niche(s)

* prey species will also undergo population growth if their primary predator is removed

You can also get various symbiotic relationships where something depends, directly or indirectly, on the presence or activities of some high-level predator.

Saying that eliminating one large animal species is "consequence-free" is very short-sighted and not at all right, IMO.

[Tony Haines]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

//Saying that eliminating one large animal species is "consequence-free" is very short-sighted and not at all right, IMO.//

In the general case you're right. But since the narrow case is very specifically removal of an introduced creature; your two starred points are probably the objective, and the third point does not apply.

However I do concede the following as theoretical risks:

* If you had two introduced species and remove one, the other may become more of a problem.

* If the ecosystem had effectively stabilised with the introduced species as an essential part, it may decay to an even less desirable state if it were removed.

I've not heard of either and (in my non-expert and perhaps naive opinion) think that they're pretty unlikely in island ecosystems, but maybe thats because they're taken into account when a culling project is considered. Certainly they are often done in combination with an attempt to recover some of the original diversity (i.e. reintroduction of locally extinct species) which presumably helps.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Two huge successes in Australia include the introduction of dung beetles to control the fly population, and a moth whose lavae attack prickly pear, a nasty invasive cactus. There have been other successes in Australia.

And fwiw the carp concerned really are unfit to eat, they aren't the same as the types consumed in Europe or Chinese cooking. Their only practical use is as fertiliser.

Now if someone could find a way to eradicate mosquitos ...

[TeeCee]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Now if someone could find a way to eradicate mosquitos ...

They already did. DDT and spray the breeding ponds with paraffin. It was all going very well and the mosquito looked pretty much beaten, until the eco-Nazis banned DDT and the uncontrolled spraying of petrochemicals......

If you ever get malaria, blame a hippy.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

If you ever get malaria, blame a hippy.

I offer: resistance.

Maybe kills 99.9% of nasties, but it's the ones that it doesn't kill that will breed and pass on their genetic windfall..

[Alan Brown]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"until the eco-Nazis banned DDT"

DDT worked well for the first couple of years. After that resistance in the insect population meant ever-increasing spray levels which got into the food chain and concentrated in higher levels (including us)

It was the first real demonstration of evolution in action - mutations occur and persist in the population until something causes selection action. At that point the (dis)advantages become apparent and get passed (or not) to descendants.

Interestingly, DDT spraying _now_ has about the same effect as when it was first tried all those years ago, which shows that without selection pressure, non-resistant genes will surface again. It's used in some areas for mosquito control, but never for more than a couple of years in a row. Changing the poison regularly means that resistance never has a chance to breed true.

[cray74]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Now if someone could find a way to eradicate mosquitos ...

Central regions of Florida (in the Ocala National Forest area) had some luck eliminating biting mosquitoes by introducing non-biting mosquitoes that squeezed out their bloodsucking relatives. (Not the more recent plan to introduce genetically modified mosquitoes.)

Unfortunately, the non-biting mosquitoes proliferated into dense, unnerving swarms. In 2010, I went to the National Forest to test out some new radio equipment on a radio tower there. When we pulled up to the foot of the tower, the windows turned gray within a minute because of the bugs landing in dense swarms on the car. True, they didn't bite, but it was unnerving to have to walk through swarms so thick that it wasn't just a matter of waving one or two away from your face but keeping them out of your nose. They disappeared 20 feet above the ground and the tower was 60 feet tall, so the team stayed up there as much as possible.

So, that's a biting, disease-spreading mosquito elimination "success," for certain definitions of "success."

[Alan Brown]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"Now if someone could find a way to eradicate mosquitos ..."

Mosquitoes are important pollinators (yes really). The "unforseen conequences" of eradication could be extremely severe.

[John Bailey]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"Has there EVER been a targeted local species eradication project which did not have unintended, unforeseen and horrific consequences?"

Yep. Plenty.

Most pesticides.

Most introduced predators.

Most growing/raising practice changes.

Culls, hunting, weeding..

Most crop modification.

We like to call it agriculture.

You only notice disasters.

Cane toads brought in to eat crop pests. Disaster. Bwhaaaaaa

DDT. Not as safe as thought.

But.

Ladybirds brought in to eat aphids.. roaring success.

Lacewings, predatory wasps, praying mantis.. Brilliant. Reduces the need for pesticides, harmless to beneficial pollinators.

But far better to do nothing, Eh. Then what could possibly go wrong.. Apart from every water way being infested with carp, and dying from lack of useful species.

Here.. Yours would be the one with the Japanese Knotweed seeds stuck under the collar.

[David 132]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

Has there EVER been a targeted local species eradication project which did not have unintended, unforeseen and horrific consequences?

Mm-hmm. It's a chain of good intentions that invariably begins with something like "Let's release spiders to kill the mosquitoes" and usually ends with arguments about "OK, smartarse, how are we going to bring the elephant plague under control?"

[Adam 1]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

> that invariably begins with something like "Let's release spiders to kill the ...

Given we are talking about Australia here, the only reason you would release the spiders is to deal with excessive human population.

But that is just cruel because spiders are scary. Drop bears would achieve the same but their victim would never even see it coming and experience any terror. Much more humane IMHO.

[Jan 0]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

The only downside of the eradication of the coypu in the UK seems to be the demise of "Coypu Comix". I don't think that Mick Sparksman and his family were rendered destitute by the eradication of the coypu. The workers in Coypu Control were paid extra to compensate for eliminating their jobs. (A bonus of 3 x their annual salary IIRC.)

[Medixstiff]

Re: Close your eyes and make a wish

"Has there EVER been a targeted local species eradication project which did not have unintended, unforeseen and horrific consequences?"

Well I'm still waiting for someone to tractor beam some space junk on Parliament House in Canberra, if it takes out the whole state https://40.media.tumblr.com/7e251365f501c79bfbdcefade37fc41c/tumblr_nj9253HQDR1sbwbino1_500.jpg

[Christoph]

Useless bottom feeders

Couldn't they just put them in parliament?

[2460 Something]

Re: Useless bottom feeders

They already did. Unfortunately they installed the resistant variety.

[Anonymous Coward]

Carp tastes awful?

Lots and lots of people in Eastern Europe would disagree with you.

Hey Oz, why not ship therm (Dead naturally) to places like Poland? You might even make a few dollars.

[DiggerDave]

Re: Carp tastes awful?

Cooee cobber, we haven't been floundering around down here mate. We have found a use for them

See www.charliecarp.com

[Voland's right hand]

Re: Carp tastes awful?

It is the Aussies being utterly incompetent in cooking them.

Carp, stuffed with ground walnut (or pecans), sultanas, sliced quince and bramleys and baked slowly for about 1h - 1h 30 mins (time depends on size) is one of the most delicious meals on the planet

The bramleys and quince kill all the smell - if it is stinky just shovel more of that. I have cooked carp taken out of a swamp next to a petrol refinery a few times. Even _THAT_ comes out OK using that technology. Though in that case you have to stuff it just with quince + bramleys and discard all of the stuffing (if you want to live after eating the meal).

There are also plenty of means to cook non-stinky farmed carp, but they are not applicable to this particular use case :)

The same applies to estuary grey mullet - something which in Australia is eaten only by the crocodiles.

[Mark 85]

Re: Carp tastes awful?

Depends on the species of carp... some are quite tasty if you can get around the bones. Some get quite tasty only if you put them in a fresh water holding tank for a few days to cleanse the mud vein. Others.... not so good.

[inmypjs]

racist bastards

Funny how you can kill (and are even required to kill) some animals because they are the wrong colour or race.

Now biological weapons are ok as well.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: racist bastards

Edit: I eventually thought I'd address this strange display of ignorance seriously.

We control populations of introduced species because of the damage they to do ecosystems that developed without them. In Australia, which is an island and thus developed in isolation, there are a lot of those.

For example, the rabbit was immensely destructive in Australia because it had few predators to keep it under control. Also have a look at the destruction wrought by cane toads*, crown of thorns starfish and latterly fire ants, to name only a few.

* A perfect but unfortunate example of a control program gone wrong. We aren't quite so careless these days.

[inmypjs]

Re: racist bastards

"I eventually thought I'd address this strange display of ignorance seriously"

Who the fuck are you to say that rabbits or carp should not be allowed to prosper in Australia? or for an example closer to home grey squirrels are vermin which you are required by law to kill if caught while you will be prosecuted for harming a red squirrel.

Dolphins caught in Tuna nets are tragic while Tuna caught in Tuna nets are tasty.

How would suggesting development of a lethal herpes virus that targets Muslims go down?

I thought I was being more observant than ignorant about how full of shit people are.

[x 7]

Re: racist bastards

"How would suggesting development of a lethal herpes virus that targets Muslims go down?"

I'm sure if ISIL had the chance they'd unleash such a virus on us non-muslims

[Arctic fox]

"Not people. Well, not yet"

Given the rate of STDs these days people can manage that for themselves without need for government assisstance!

[imanidiot]

Re: "Not people. Well, not yet"

Herpes really isn't a big deal to humans. (An estimated 85 to 90% of the human population has some form of herpes)

[Laura Kerr]

Blasted Johnny Foreigner fish.

A pox on 'em, I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Introduce all the things!

Australia is just a giant game of Sim life. Introduce all the species and see what survives.

(Spoiler: It'll be willow and dragons. It's ALWAYS willow and dragons)

['s water music]

Sexual habits

bottom feeder?

susceptible to herpes?

coincidence?

The heavily stained one please -->

[TheOtherHobbes]

I thought this had already happened?

[earl grey]

Just like the Great Lakes between US & Canada

Once the carp get in there via Chicago (and because of crooked politicians there and elsewhere), they carp will take over the great lakes and push out most of the other species there. Another ecological disaster (like the ash borer).

[joed]

Re: Just like the Great Lakes between US & Canada

Ash borer did not need politicians' help (maybe just lack of imagination). Landscapers blowing crap out their trailers along the highway did just fine.

[Mark 85]

Re: Just like the Great Lakes between US & Canada

Let's not forget the zebra mussel which is spreading the other way. Ships discharging water ballast in the Great Lakes deposits those little bastards and then they (politicos, etc.) changed the direction of the flow of the Chicago River....

[x 7]

theres a famous recipe for carp which goes along the lines of.........

gut and clean the fish

season and flavour with salt, pepper and lemon

wrap with damp newspaper

place between two sheets of cardboard

bake for 90 minutes

throw away fish and newspaper, eat the cardboard

[Tom 7]

The Year of the Angry Rabbit

is a science fiction novel by Australian author Russell Braddon which is well worth a read.

Covers this nicely.

[NomNomNom]

"The species is blamed for a decline in water quality"

While we are on the subject of blame I would also like to see dolphins punished for the BP deep water horizon oil leak a few years back, as well as the lesser spotted woodpecker for it's role in precipitating WWII.

[Anonymous Coward]

Carp (Asian) also a problem in the U.S.!!

Damned Asian carp taking jobs from hardworking American fish!! Some varieties go pretty crazy around boats too.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=asian+carp+jumping+video&view=detail&mid=CB963262EF63A9105E41CB963262EF63A9105E41&FORM=VIRE6

Tux--because maybe he has some friends who could help solve the problem!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe carp are a new recreational resource?

it seems that exterminating the fish might deprive Aussies from the next frontier of competitive sports!

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Asian+Carp+Basketball&&view=detail&mid=E4520968D1E6FFBE4F21E4520968D1E6FFBE4F21

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Maybe carp are a new recreational resource?

That's two downvotes for you for trying to get El Reg readers to 'bing'..

Why I oughta smack you on the back o' the head wit' a brick!

[Anonymous Coward]

Carp Soup

In Slovakia and other Eastern European countries, Carp soup is the Christmas dinner special of choice.

[J.Smith]

Re: Carp Soup

What do we do the rest of the year?

[x 7]

Re: Carp Soup

"Carp soup is the Christmas dinner special of choice."

Commie countries never had much to celebrate, and especially not at Xmas

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

So, Magikarp is triumphant at last. ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Unintended Consequences

Better warn the Portsmouth fish fuckers before they travel to Aus

[Adam 1]

They're not going to infect the ones at Bonnie Doon right?

[mIRCat]

I swear you're the only woman for me!

Try explaining that rash to the missus.

Mines the one with extra protection in the pocket.

[x 7]

I'm surprised the Oz government didn't try this out on the Abo's first.......

They've done pretty much everything else they could try in the past to wipe them out

[MrZoolook]

Paris, because...

... herpes!