The U.S. and Canada's common enemy: invasive and voracious carp

Finally, something to unite President Donald Trump, his Democratic opponents and the Canadians he’s threatening to annex: a ferociously hungry carp.

Invasive carp, sometimes called Asian carp, were introduced in the United States in the 1970s. And they’ve never stopped spreading — and eating everything in their path — since.

“They’re eating machines,” said Trisiah Tugade, an aquatic biologist with Canada’s Invasive Carp Program, as she and her team glided along the Grand River — a Lake Erie tributary — looking for fish that specialists fear will devastate the Great Lakes.

Because they can eat up 40 percent of their bodyweight daily, invasive carps were initially seen as a tool to control nuisance algae in confined areas, like aquaculture ponds.

But they escaped, likely during floods, a