Origin: 
Eastern Asia

Characteristics: 
Cigar-shaped fish with a broad, blunt head and terminal, horizontal mouth.  They jump out of the water when disturbed.

Impacts: 
They can eliminate aquatic vegetation that is crucial habitat for other fish species

Management: 
Nothing can be done to manage them in Nebraska

This species was first imported to the United States in 1963 to aquaculture facilities in Auburn, Alabama, and Stuttgart, Arkansas. The Auburn stock came from Taiwan, and the Arkansas stock was imported from Malaysia. The first release of this species into open waters took place at Stuttgart, Arkansas, when fish escaped the Fish Farming Experimental Station. However, many of the early stockings in Arkansas were in lakes or reservoirs open to stream systems, and by the early 1970s there were many reports of grass carp captured in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. During the past few decades, the species has spread rapidly as a result of widely scattered research projects, stockings by federal, state, and local government agencies, legal and illegal interstate transport and release by individuals and private groups, escapes from farm ponds and aquaculture facilities; and natural dispersal from introduction sites.