Similar to Catfish, European Carp are Now Being Hunted Extensively
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Anglers across Australia are being urged to consume European carp found in local waters. This is because the population of the fish continues to increase.
Tracy Hill from Coorong Wild Seafood, who suggested this, explained that this step could help solve the problem.
“This is a first-class protein and it tastes fantastic,” Hill said, quoted by Yahoo News, Thursday (June 4, 2026).
The fish is considered one of the most destructive invasive pests in Australian waters, especially in the Murray-Darling Basin. The NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) explained that carp can eat the bottom of waterways.
“They are known as pests because of their destructive habit of eating the bottom of waterways, stirring up sediment and clouding the water,” said a DPIRD spokesperson.
DPIRD also advises that people who catch carp should not return them to the water, but kill them humanely.
In several states, such as South Australia, Queensland and Victoria, returning carp to the water is illegal. However, according to Hill, this creates another problem.
Because anglers who catch them do something else, such as leaving the fish on the riverbank.
“There’s nothing that can be done with it, so it just lies there and rots, or they take it home and bury it in their garden,” she explained.
Meanwhile, the federal government is considering a plan to release a herpes virus into the waters. The hope is that this will reduce the number of carp by up to 60%.
However, Hill opposes this and calls it ‘idiotic’. She also said that the investment in the virus could be used to harvest more fish.
“If the investment in harvesting strategies was as large as the investment in the virus, we would have caught thousands of tons of fish by now,” she said.
The approach used by Australian authorities differs from Jakarta’s efforts to eradicate other pest fish, namely catfish. In Jakarta, catfish are caught alive and then buried.
Experts do not recommend consuming catfish caught from rivers in Jakarta because they contain metals that are not good for the body’s health.
(dem/dem)