Untitled

Invasion of an Exotic Fish—Common Carp, <I>Cyprinus Carpio</I> L. (Actinopterygii: Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae) in the Ganga River, India and its Impacts

“…The local fishes of the Ganga River were subjected to the threats of pollution by sewage and industrial wastes, deforestation, excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides, and water development programmes (Rao 2001, Sarkar and Bain 2006. Consequently, the catches of local fish species were adversely affected (Lakra et al 2009) but invasion of exotic C. carpio and tilapia in the fishery of the Ganga River has been found to aggravate the threats to the indigenous fish diversity including environmental problem (Gopal and Zutshi 1998, Rao 2001, Das 2007, Khanna et al 2007, Singh et al 2008b.…”

“…The declining trend of Indian major carps in the Ganga River and increasing appearance of common carp in the fishery is a warranting situation of biological invasion threatening ecological integrity. The problem of repopulating C. carpio in degrading water of the river (Gopal and Sah 1993, Gopal and Zutshi 1998, Khanna et al 2007) has come up to conserve rich fish genetic resources of the Ganga River before it faces a major alteration. This would not only influence the human but might induce either more adaptability of the biota living in it or might cause damage to various species which would not be able to adapt to such fast ongoing change.…”