River Snatchers

Hey, so I wrote another thing for TVOntario about Asian carp — this time about Canada and America’s binational efforts to halt Asian carp in the Illinois River before they make it to the Great Lakes. 

From the piece:

When 2015 ends, Asian carp will be 106 kilometres closer to Lake Michigan in the Illinois River than they were to start the year.

In response, one of the largest cooperative environmental endeavours ever undertaken in North America has begun. Not since control efforts began against sea lamprey in the 1950s have Canadian and U.S. resource officials, academics and politicians joined forces so fully on an environmental catastrophe. This united front is key to fighting a major risk to the Great Lakes ecosystem. Even more important, how the two countries fight Asian carp now will prove useful in determining how they manage other invasive threats in future.

Okay, this is kinda cute, in a super cheesy way.

‘Jumpin’ Jack,’ a human-sized silver carp, crashed a children’s Halloween Party in Urbana, Illinois to showcase how unwanted the invasive fish has become in the state. The costume is, all things considered, pretty good.

According to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, monitoring for the US Fish and Wildlife Service turned up a handful of 6.5-inch silver carp, the smallest Asian carp to be found in the Marseilles reach of the Illinois River.

With the latest advance of the fish, they move 12 miles closer to Lake Michigan, making the invasive fish just 76 miles from the Chicago electric barrier and the lake beyond. Since the beginning of 2015, Asian carp have moved 66 miles further inland towards the Great Lakes.

From the Detroit Free Press:

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow on Sunday urged the Obama administration to take “immediate action” to respond to the threat of Asian carp after U.S. Fish and Wildlife said the species has been found 12 miles nearer to Lake Michigan.

Troubling, and something I had never considered before when it comes to government shutdowns.

From The Hill blog:

A prime example of such an impact can be found in the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) November 2013 report, "Impacts and Costs of the October 2013 Federal Government Shutdown." U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists were unable complete field-testing of a technology to prevent the spread of Asian carp, an invasive species, into the Great Lakes. Testing was delayed by half a year, time that the endangered Great Lakes fisheries didn't have.

Interesting to see US interest in Ontario’s Grass Carp Summer, when a total of eight fish were captured in Lakes Ontario and Erie, some weighing as much as 40 pounds.

Grass carp have appeared in Michigan waters before, but evidence of their reproduction in the Great Lakes Basin is not widespread yet. No Asian carp have been found in Michigan waters this year.

It’s all happening.

Fort Wayne, Indiana is the home of Eagle Marsh, the low-lying, potential vector for Asian carp that authorities worry could be a gateway between the carp-infested waters of the Wabash River and the as-yet carp-free waters of the Great Lakes.

The Army Corps proposed building a giant earthen berm at the site to stop the spread of the fish in the event of flooding. But then flooding got in the way of construction this summer. (There’s already a giant fence on site to keep the fish from moving between the sub-continental divide than runs through the marsh.)

Between June and August, Fort Wayne got a lot of rain. I mean a LOT of rain, more any time since records were kept. With nearly 22 inches of rain in this time (almost two feet!) it was four inches more than the second highest rainfall for the same time period. Needless to say, digging an earthen berm is hard work in a wetland when the area is underwater.

A 19-year old St. Louis man is lucky to be alive after taking a direct hit from a silver carp while tubing on a river north of the city infested with Asian carp.

From the Fox News Story:

“That direct hit fractured Jordan`s nose and dented his forehead, shattering the bones above his brow and in both eye sockets.

Asian Carp are an invasive species that jump above the water line when they are startled or scared, and the results in Jordan`s case could have been life threatening.

'If it had hit me any harder it could have broken my skull bones and essentially damaged my brain and killed me on the spot,' he said.”

Last week the Globe and Mail published an Op-Ed I wrote about the need to keep funding Canada’s Asian Carp Monitoring Program. In the wake of two fertile grass carp being found along Toronto’s waterfront, it’s imperative that we keep up monitoring efforts to make sure we can respond quickly and effectively once other fish are found. 

Self-proclaimed ‘rednecks’ will have to wait another month to take in the annual charity festivities in Bath, Illinois. 

The Redneck Fishing Tournament, a now-famous local fishing tournament in which would-be fishers try and catch as many Asian carp as possible without using traditional fishing gear or tackle, has been moved from August 7 to the Labour Day weekend on account of high waters on the Illinois River. Organizers felt it just wouldn’t be safe to send boaters out with waters higher than predicted.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced Tuesday that two 9-year old, fertile, male grass carp were found in a spit of parkland on Toronto’s waterfront this week.

It’s the first time grass carp have been found in Lake Ontario. Previously, the furthest into the Great Lakes that grass carp have been found was the Grand River near Lake Erie. Otherwise, tributaries of Lake Erie like the Sandusky River in Ohio were the furthest grass carp had been found.

The two fish, which have been killed and sent to labs in the United States for study, were located in construction ponds in Tommy Thompson Park, also known as the Leslie Street Spit. The spit is a hotspot for waterfowl and other birds.

Right now, DFO doesn’t know whether the fish migrated north on their own or whether they were intentional releases. Certain religions practice live-animal release, and this could be how the fish arrives at Tommy Thompson Park. 

“There is no evidence of any breeding or spawning behaviour,” according to Becky Cudmore, head of DFO’s Asian carp program. “Those are all very good signs. But we are concerned and out there to find if there are any more.”

Missouri conservation officials have been called out in recent days to pick up hundreds of dead silver and bighead carp in Creve Coeur Lake west of St. Louis.

State officials were tipped off when local kayakers and swimmers found dozens of floating, smelly dead carp in the lake. And once the state came to scoop the dead fish out of the lake it kept finding more and more.

The theory of how the fish got into Creve Coeur Lake is via a spat of recent flooding in the area that would have allowed them to move overland. Once the flood waters receded and the lake warmed up to its natural temperature, the environmental became inhospitable for the fish.

From Outdoor Hub:

These fish may be hard to catch on rod and reel, but are very popular among bowfishermen and have little in the way of bag limits. Despite their reputation for tasting like a cooked shoe, many anglers have also figured out ways to make carp more palatable.

In July, 1983, Senate Republican House Leader Howard Baker commended the Tennessee Valley Authority for being at the “forefront of scientific problem solving” in using grass carp to control hydrilla. This aquatic weed was reproducing so alarmingly fast that it threatened to make TVA reservoirs unusable. 

Baker’s poem, which I’d never heard before coming across this Senate record in the University of Central Arkansas archives, is pretty adorable. But it does speak to the larger struggle which, at that point, was only then coming to a close after a decade of bitter debates over the sense of stocking of grass carp in open water systems.

There’s a really fascinating debate going on new in Minneapolis. No, really. The city has the unique opportunity to work with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine the future of their riverfront and what kind of city they hope to build in the 21st century.

I might be making it sound more grandiose that a questions about infrastructure merits, but not by much. Rarely is a working lock and dam structure run by the federal government closed down to halt the spread of an invasive species like Asian carp, but in this case — well, that’s the case.

Now, the city and the Corps need to determine what, if anything, they want to do with the structure in the heart of downtown. Some have been proposing a radical redesign which would turn much of the riverfront into national park land and the river itself a return to the rapids that were once common here. 

The organization American Rivers will be hosting a forum this in Minneapolis to “discuss how to proceed with the restoration concept. The forum will try to answer questions about the project, like invasive species concerns, and identify the many barriers that stand between Minneapolis and its wild river.” 

Residents of St. Louis woke up this week to find hundreds of bighead and silver carp swimming in the River des Peres, a low-flow channel south of the city that occasionally ferries sewage overflow.

Recent flooding in the area caused water from the Mississippi River to move into the water channel, bringing with it dozens of the invasive fish and like many native species as well. Kevin Irons with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources described the slow-moving waterway as a “buffet” for solvers and bigheads who will likely remain in the area as long as they spot an advantage. Native fish species, however, are more likely to move out of the area as they sense the water level begin to drop post-flood.