How About A Nice Carp Burger?

Ugly fish producing pretty profits
CHICAGO, May 7 (UPI) -- Midwestern fishermen are making lemonade out of lemons when it comes to those pesky fish known as the Asian carp.

While efforts mount to keep the carp from eating their way to the Great Lakes, commercial fishermen who ply the waters of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers are profiting by catching and selling them.

They've dipped into savings to purchase nets strong enough to hold the carp and machines able to grind them up into patties like hamburgers, according to the Sunday Chicago Tribune.

The ugly looking carp were originally introduced in the 1960s to eat algae in ponds on catfish farms. Unfortunately, they escaped and now there are probably some 65 million pounds of Asian carp in the Illinois River alone, the newspaper said.

Mike Shafer of Schafer Fisheries in Thomson, Ill., sold 2 million pounds of carp last year to Asian communities in New York, Toronto and Los Angeles. He ships another 3,000 pounds a week to restaurants and shops in Chicago's Chinatown.