Wanted: Home for 6 million dead carp

Wanted: Home for 6 million dead carp


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PROVO, Utah (AP) -- Utah is trying to find a taker for a surplus of dead carp.

Anyone? We're talking carp, six million of them.

Wildlife officials are trying to unload the carp to help out a rare, funny-looking fish called the June sucker. The sucker is trying to make a comeback in the state's largest freshwater lake. But when the carp feed along the bottom, they rip out weeds -- an important hiding place for young June suckers. Without the weeds, the suckers are easy pickings for hungry predators such as bass and walleye.

The June sucker, which is known to live only in Utah Lake and its tributaries, has been listed as an endangered species since 1986. Biologists estimated there were fewer than 1,000 left.

In recent years, about 100,000 June suckers have been raised in a hatchery and dropped into the lake.

Already, some dead carp have been used for compost. There's talk of shipping them overseas to tap into the strong international market or for use in humanitarian missions. They could also be kept closer to home for fish meal, pet food, fish sticks or canned carp.

Some people even dream of converting them into biofuels.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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