Asian carp roundup in Kentucky opens new front in battle

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

by Travis Loller and John Flesher

Like a slow-motion, underwater cattle drive, wildlife officials in a half-dozen aluminum boats used pulses of electricity and sound on a recent gray morning to herd schools of Asian carp toward 1,000-foot-long (305 meters) nets.

The ongoing roundup on wind-rippled Kentucky Lake opens a new front in a 15-year battle to halt the advance of the invasive carp, which threaten to upend aquatic ecosystems, starve out native fish and wipe out endangered mussel and snail populations along the Mississippi River and dozens of tributaries.

State and federal agencies together have spent roughly $607 million to stop them since 2004, according to data compiled by The Associated Press. Projects in the works are expected to push the price tag to about $1.5 billion over the next decade.

That's more than five times the amount predicted in 2007 when a national carp management plan was crafted, and no end is in sight. Programs aim to reduce established populations and prevent further spreading, but wildlife officials concede they may never be able to eradicate the prolific fish.

Much of the focus has been on limiting their northerly migration and keeping them out of the Great Lakes, where experts say they could devastate a $7 billion fishing industry. That effort features an underwater electric barrier near Chicago, water sampling for carp DNA, subsidies for commercial fishers and experiments with a mass roundup-type harvest.

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New plan would fight invasive Asian carp with air bubbles, electric shocks, noise

MAY 27, 2019

by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press

The head of the Army Corps of Engineers has signed off on a $778 million plan to stop the spread of Asian carp toward the Great Lakes with air bubbles, electric shocks and noise, sending it to Congress for approval.

The plan sent by Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite would block the invasive species' advance toward Lake Michigan at a key choke point at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam along the Des Plaines River in Illinois.

It would:

- Put in place additional electric barriers in the waterway to stop most Asian carp from moving through the lock and dam.

- Use special underwater speakers while ships were moving through the locks to blast sound waves at decibels and frequencies sufficient to make Asian carp species uncomfortable enough to turn back.

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Huge, once-hated fish now seen as weapon against Asian carp

July 29, 2016 by Tammy Webber

It's a toothy giant that can grow longer than a horse and heavier than a refrigerator, a fearsome-looking prehistoric fish that plied U.S. waters from the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois until it disappeared from many states a half-century ago.

Persecuted by anglers and deprived of places to spawn, the alligator gar—with a head that resembles an alligator and two rows of needlelike teeth—survived primarily in southern states in the tributaries of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico after being declared extinct in several states farther north. To many, it was a freak, a "trash fish" that threatened sportfish, something to be exterminated.

But the once-reviled predator is now being seen as a valuable fish in its own right, and as a potential weapon against a more threatening intruder: the invasive Asian carp, which have swum almost unchecked toward the Great Lakes, with little more than an electric barrier to keep them at bay. Efforts are now underway to reintroduce the alligator gar in the northern part of its old range.

"What else is going to be able to eat those monster carp?" said Allyse Ferrara, an alligator gar expert at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, where the species is relatively common. "We haven't found any other way to control them."

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Holy Flying Fish! Why Jumping Asian Carp Bombard Rowers

by Tia Ghose, Staff Writer | April 14, 2015 03:52pm ET

A gang of jumping Asian carp recently leapt out of the water and flung themselves at students rowing in a boat — an encounter that was captured on video.

Though it may look like a coordinated attack by an underwater army, the behavior seen in the flying-carp video was likely unintentional, a result of the fish getting spooked, according to a fish and wildlife expert.

"It's not an aggressive attack, it's an escape mechanism," Viv Shears, the director of VS Fisheries, told the BBC.

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Invasive species use landmarks as ‘nature’s nightclubs’

March 16, 2015

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – @ParkstBrett

New research from the University of Waterloo has revealed that foreign species invading a new ecosystem use local landmarks as a beacon for mating, sort of like nature’s nightclub.

Published in the journal Theoretical Ecology, the new study could lead to new methods for controlling Asian carp and other invasive species currently threatening to destroy ecosystems around the world.

“We recently found that only ten Asian carp are needed to establish a population in the Great Lakes,” said study author Kim Cuddington, an ecology professor from the University of Waterloo. “But then we asked, if there are so few individuals initially, how do they find a mate and create an ecological disaster?”

Searching for nature’s bouncer

The phenomenon observed in the study is referred to as “landmarking” and to investigate how invasive species pair up, the researchers used a mathematical technique called combinatorics that essentially involved asking: What are the odds of a male and female finding each other at a fixed amount of locations? The more pronounced and unique the location is, the higher the chance a male will get together with a female.

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Asian carp DNA found in southwestern Michigan

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Genetic material from Asian carp has been found in the Kalamazoo River in southwestern Michigan, but there's no indication the invasive fish have become established in the river that flows into Lake Michigan, officials said Tuesday.

DNA from silver carp was detected in one of 200 water samples taken in July from the river in Allegan County, this one from below the Caulkins Dam about 24 miles from Lake Michigan, the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

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Asian Carp Spread to Upper Mississippi

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | March 12, 2014 04:37pm ET

Invasive, plankton-slurping Asian carp are creeping up the Mississippi River.

Ready-to-hatch carp eggs were discovered as far north as Lynxville, Wisc., some 250 miles (400 kilometers) farther upstream than the northernmost known breeding population of the species, the U.S. Geological Survey said today (March 12).

Asian carp have voracious appetites and high reproduction rates. Some species of the fish can grow up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and scarf down 5 to 10 percent of their body weight in plankton in a single day. Four kinds of Asian carp – grass, bighead, silver and black — can now be found in U.S. waterways and they have a tendency to out-compete native fish.

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Chicago goes to war with Asian carp

By Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News, Chicago

The US city of Chicago is considering drastic measures to prevent giant fish infesting North America's Great Lakes.

Authorities are thinking of blocking the city's canal system to stop Asian carp entering Lake Michigan.

Such a move could cost up to $18bn (£11bn) and cause huge economic disruption to the city.

Cheaper options are also being examined, including making burgers out of the fish and eating them to extinction.

This species of carp, as the name suggests, is native to the Far East.

They were originally introduced to southern US states more than three decades ago to control algal build-up in sewage treatment plants. But they escaped into the Mississippi River and proliferated, making their way north towards the Great Lakes.

More than a metre in length, they have displaced indigenous fish species along the way.

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Asian Carp Threaten U.S. Great Lakes

Two species of Asian carp could drive native fish out of the Great Lakes, according to a new government report that warns against letting these invasive fish gain a foothold in this new territory.

Bighead and silver carp in Midwestern rivers pose a "substantial environmental risk" to the Great Lakes, particularly Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie, according to a risk assessment released today (July 16) by Canadian and U.S. scientists.

"Ever since these non-native fish first escaped and began to breed prolifically in the rivers of the Midwest, the questions everyone has been asking are: Can a breeding population survive in the Great Lakes, and would it be a significant problem if they did?" Now we know the answers, and unfortunately they are yes and yes," Marcia McNutt, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement.  "This study will help scientists and resource managers in Canada and the U.S. determine how and where to redouble their efforts as they continue to prevent the establishment of these invasive fish."

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/21625-great-lakes-invasive-carp.html