Daughterless Carp Project
As carp are prolific breeders, hardy and highly adaptable, they quickly established themselves in Australia's waterways.Female fish development relies heavily on the hormone estrogen, which is produced by the transformation of androgen by the enzyme aromatase.Also, a small risk exists that the gene could transfer over to native fish populations, eliminating them as well; however, as carp do not breed with any native Australian species, the risk of the technology affecting anything other than the targeted pest in Australia is extremely low.Zebra fish were ideal candidates for initial trials as they are closely related to carp and have very short generation times.In practice, the other population control techniques such as introduction of koi herpes virus may be used in combination with daughterless carp to improve the effect.