No carp in Chicago waters after six-week search

[Spiel]

No carp in Chicago waters after six-week search

 

 

April 5, 2010 / www.great-lakes.org

 

Chicago(AP) — An initial six-week mission to catch and kill Asian carp lurking on the Great Lakes' doorstep turned up none of the despised fish, suggesting few if any have eluded an electric barrier designed to block their path to Lake Michigan, officials said last week

Beginning in mid-February, teams of biologists and commercial fishermen combed a network of Chicago-area rivers and canals where Asian carp DNA has been detected in numerous spots over the past year. They spread netting across large areas and used electric stunning prods where they believed the carp were most likely to gather, said Chris McCloud, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Field crews set approximately 5.6 miles of net and sampled for a total of 60 hours using electrofishing gear in the main

 

channels,barge slips, marinas and other channel areas. Speciescollected in highest abundance were common car(1,000) and gizzard shad(+1,000. Other species observed or collected included bluntnose minnow, drum, pumpkinseed sunfish, largemouth bass, northern pike, channel catfish, yellow perch, green sunfish and yellow bullhead. All fish collected were returned to the channel.

 

No silver or bighead carp were found.

"What this tells us is if they are present above the barrier, they are in very low numbers as we've said before," McCloud said. The barrier's effectiveness is a key issue in the debate over whether to close shipping locks in the waterways to keep the invasive carp from entering Lake Michigan, as sport fishing interests and most states along the Great Lakes would like.

In order to validate the sampling techniques upstream, field crews also sampled in areas far below the electric barrier where Asian carppopulations are present. DNR biologists recovered 36 Silver carp and four Bighead carp near Starved Rock Lock and Dam,approximately 70 miles downstream from the electric barrier.

 

The Regional Coordinating Committee is developing a three month monitoring plan to extend sampling efforts.

 

Illinois and the Obama administration oppose closing the locks, siding with Chicago barge and tour boat companies who say doing so would devastate their businesses. They contend the electric barrier is performing well and closing the leak-prone locks wouldn't be a foolproof measure.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused for a second time Michigan's request to order the locks closed.

Early sampling efforts were focused on areas where warm water was being discharged from industrial operations, including power plants and wastewater treatment plants. Fish tend to congregate near warmer water during winter. As spring approached and ice receded, the search area was broadened.

 

Ashley Spratt, a spokeswoman for the fish and wildlife service, acknowledged the failure to catch any Asian carp above the barrier didn't necessarily mean none were there. "They are hard to catch and this is a big area we're looking at," she said.

John Sellek, a spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, said Monday that although no Asian carp were found, Michigan still wants the locks closed. "What did they expect? (Illinois') own court filings say they are not likely to catch Asian carp using nets or electro-fishing," Sellek said.

Biologists plan to continue searching over the next three months as part of a $78.5 million Asian carp control strategy.

"Intensifying our sampling and monitoring efforts in high-risk areas for Asian carp provides us with critical data on population dynamics, potential range expansion and movement of the species," said Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director for the USFWS.