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BTN: Curbing the carp population

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Carp fish underwater
BTN: Curbing the carp population

SUBJECTS:  Science

YEARS:  7–8, 9–10


Find out why European carp fish are called 'river rabbits' in Australia.

Listen to how they came to Australia and what makes them such a pest now.

Discover how a local entrepreneur is exploiting the new resource while scientists are doing their best to cap the carp population explosion.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What is an 'introduced species'? Can you give an example of a plant and animal species introduced into Australia by white settlers? How might an introduced fish species become a pest? (Think about predators, competitors and habitat.)
  2. 2.Watch out for land, air and sea invaders. Note when the carp were first brought to Australia. Look for a visual problem caused by carp. Check out what technology is used by fishers and scientists to catch carp.
  3. 3.How do carp impact on plants and other fish in the rivers? Why would it be difficult to eliminate the carp completely? How might the release of genetically engineered 'daughterless' carp help control population numbers?
  4. 4.Investigate how the carp escaped from farm dams near Mildura to reach the Murray-Darling River, and why they underwent a population explosion once they got there.



Date of broadcast: 23 Nov 2010


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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