Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Commercial fishing crews have begun what's believed to be the nation's biggest carp removal project.
Fishermen are expected to pull about 6 million pounds of the bottom-feeders out of Utah Lake this fall and winter.
The work is intended to help an endangered fish called the June sucker that lives nowhere else but the lake and its tributaries.
The effort has been buoyed by $1 million in federal stimulus funds pledged earlier this year.
Fishing started Sept. 21. Utah June sucker recovery program director Reed Harris says about 160,000 pounds of carp have been removed so far.
Most are being turned into compost or food for a Utah mink farm. State officials are looking at other proposals, including grinding them into fish meal or shipping them out of state for human consumption.
------
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
