They’re heeeeere!!! Carp breach electrical barrier at Chicago

[Spiel]

They're heeeeere!!! Carp breach electrical barrier at Chicago; 20-pounder found six miles from Lake Michigan

June 23, 2010 / G

reatlakesecho.org

 

 

Bighead carp found just six miles from Lake Michigan. Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

 

 

 

 

A 20-pound bighead Asian Carp was fished out of Lake Calumet in Chicago, the first one found to have breached an electrical barrier designed to keep the voracious invader out of Lake Michigan, federal officials said Wednesday.

 

The fish was found Tuesday during routine sampling, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, a group of government agencies trying to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes.

 

Agencies are working to remove any additional carp from Lake Calumet, just six miles downstream of Lake Michigan.

 

Fishery experts fear the prolific carp could dramatically alter the Great Lakes ecosystem by outcompeting native fish for food and habitat.

 

Environmental organizations used the discovery to renew calls to permanently block the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal which allowed the carp to travel from the Mississippi River watershed to the one that drains into Lake Michigan.

 

"Asian carp are like cockroaches, when you see one, you know its accompanied by many more you don't see," Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest Program said in a news release. "Now we can stop arguing about whether the fish are in Chicago's canals and start moving as quickly as possible toward permanently separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds.

 

Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes Office of the National Wildlife Federation, said there were no more physical barriers to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

 

"If the capture of this live fish doesn't confirm the urgency of this problem, nothing will," Buchsbaum said in a news release. "We need to pull out all the stops; this is code red for the Great Lakes."

 

An Asian carp was found on Dec. 3 in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal below the electric barrier system and just above the<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Lockport Lock and Dam, federal authorities say. Intensive sampling began on February 17 to find the carp above the electrical barrier. Sampling throughout the past four months did not produce the carp until now.

 

"We set out on a fact finding mission and we have found what we were looking for," John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said in a news release. "This is important evidence and the more information we have about where Asian carp are, the better chance we have of keeping them out of the Great Lakes."

 

[Dave Bailey]

Bad news. We need to do whatever is necessary to wipe them out. To those who say it can't be done I have two words - passenger pigeon.

[Twocoda]

June 18 2009 FTA goes dark

June 23 2010 Asian Carp in the great lakes

 

cant wait to see what next June will bring us

[a.cortellessa]

Ive never seen a bighead carp before.. they sure look odd!

[Sinker3]

Don't worry about this issue. It's all a bunch of hooee contrived by biologists and a those who believe their nonsense.

Want to bet that in ten years we will still have a thriving fishery in the Great Lakes and its tribs. Please don't lose any sleep over this issue. It's the same thing as the biologists that claimed the sky is falling with the Gypsy moth, then the Asian Long horn beetle. The only harm these insects did was caused by the people who listened to the biologists and convinced bureaucrats to spend billions to fight them. Made no difference and we are still seeing forests as always.

Sinker

[kickingfrog]

I also found ignoring problems just seams to make them go away.

[hammercarp]

Here is some stuff from the front lines so to speak. This is an ongoing topic on the carp forum that I am a member of.

1st We wish to hell that they would have labelled these things something other that carp.

 

" I can certainly help with some reputable sources, and can correct some misinformation.

 

First, there is no record of either bighead or silver carp being caught in Lake Michigan. While it is possible that a handful of carp have made it into the lake it is not likely. Earlier this month, eDNA testing begain in Michigan waters of Lake Michigan and high-priority tributaries like the St. Joe. To my knowledge (and I spoke with MDNRE chief of fisheries Kelley Smith yesterday) there have been no positive results.

 

In Lake Erie, the situation is somewhat different. A handful of bighead carp were caught there from 1995 through the early 2000s. These fish were in good health and obviously found enough to eat. There is no evidence that they reproduced, though. See photos online and Fisheries journal reference:

 

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=551

 

The fact that a handful of fish that were released into Lake Erie did not (apparently) spawn successfully is NOT evidence that they cannot spawn in the Great Lakes basin. Rivers that could serve as spawning streams on the basis of their undammed length were published in Kolar et al. 2007 (American Fisheries Society special publication 33). Further study on spawning habitat suitability in these rivers is ongoing, and will be used to prioritize monitoring efforts. Both silver and bighead carp are considered to require 1) at least 60 miles of free flowing river for development of neutrally buoyant eggs that drift until they hatch, 2) water temperature above 64 degrees F, 3) an increase in either river discharge or turbidity associated with a major rain event. These are not set in stone, and eggs have hatched in a petri dish on a desk, so mechanisms leading to the observed pattern of successful reproduction in the wild only under these conditions are unknown. Also, there are (rare) instances where reproduction has been successful even without access to a free-flowing river environment.

 

A key for the Great Lakes is that more carp equals a greater risk that they will find a receptive mate in the (relatively rare but not non-existant) patches of ideal habitat. Think of salmon. We stocked millions each year under the assumption that they would never reproduce in Great Lakes rivers. Now half of the Chinooks in Lake Michgian are products of natural spawning. Had only a handful of salmon been introduced, it is doubtful they would have established successfully. Obviously there are big differences between carp and salmon, but the point is that having a handful of fish in the system presents less risk (in the case of the carp) than a large number of carp. Prevention is therefore an important element of preventing establishment of spawning populations. The term "Establishment" is not equivalent to "Introduction". Yes, bigheads were introduced to Lake Erie. No, they did not become established. This is a common scenario in invasion biology. Often, a given species is introduced many times before it finally becomes established. Once it is established, eradication is almost always impossible (witness the battle with sea lamprey).

 

As for impacts of establishment, the NAS link above gives some good published sources. Demonstrating a causal link between a new invasive species and native fish is difficult and often takes many years of monitoring because we don't have the benefit of a good controlled experiment - it would be very irresponsible for scientists to randomly choose a set of rivers to introduce carp while leaving others as controls, for example. The natural variability of river systems makes it especially hard in rivers. Lucky for us, the Illinois Natural History Survey has a long-term data set that includes pre-carp data. The presentation below outlines some significant findings of this ongoing effort, including declines in two native planktivores - bigmouth buffalo and gizzard shad. These fish are more similar in niche to bighead and silver carps than other native species, but other native species (bass, bluegill, crappie) do depend on plankton early in life. One might expect it to take several years to see a decline in those species as a result. I have been out on the Illinois River with INHS and talked at length about other impacts. They have seen a very dramatic change in the plankton of the river since bighead and silver carp populations exploded, but I don't believe that work has been published yet. One slide shows that gamefish have declined, but note that this can't be solely attributed to carp. Again, it often takes many years of monitoring to detect trends because so many other factors (river level, temperature, etc.) come into play.

 

http://www.ilma-lakes.org/PDF/Sass.pdf

 

Please note. This is the Grand river in Michigan not Ontario.

 

 

As for the Grand River, I believe it is one of the most vulnerable rivers in the Great Lakes basin. It appears to have everything carp need for spawning, nursery, and adult habitats. Gizzard shad (which are not native to Lake Michigan, but entered through the Chicago canals in the 1950s) do very well in the lower Grand, and are similar to bighead carp and silver carp in terms of their optimum adult feeding temperature. There is potential for competition between carps and native fish, and potential that carp will affect forage species to the detriment of native predators. No one can say for sure what the extent of effects will be or how long it will take to observe them. Sea lamprey first entered Lake Michigan in 1936 and it wasn't until the late 1940s that lake trout populations crashed as a result. From the slides at the link above, you can see that bigheads came into the Illinois River (LaGrange Reach) in 1995 and silvers in 1998. Slide 7 shows that it took about 10 years (even with the very favorable environment of the Illinois River) for silver carp populations to explode. Therefore, we are only starting to see the impacts of this tremendous increase on native species. Furthermore, the impacts and timeline could be very different in the Great Lakes.

 

If we were to wait until we were certain to work toward prevention we would find ourselves in the same situation as with round goby, quagga mussles, spiny water flea, and a host of others. The work being done now on prevention is work toward closing pathways of invasion - not just for carps but for many other species down the road (the electric barriers, for example, were originally intended to keep round goby from moving OUT of Lake Michigan into the Mississippi River drainage). Chicago canals are now home to at least two exotic invertebrates that are not yet established in Lake Michigan, while Lake Michigan is home to threats like the New Zealand mudsnail and VHS that could move into the Mississippi Basin."

 

Dan

 

Dan O'Keefe, Ph.D.

Southwest District Extension Educator

Michigan Sea Grant

Michigan State University Extension

 

I hope this helps in understanding what is going on.

Edited November 8, 2010 by hammercarp

[jiaodong1983]

They're heeeeere!!! Carp breach electrical barrier at Chicago; 20-pounder found six miles from Lake Michigan

June 23, 2010 / G

reatlakesecho.org

 

 

Bighead carp found just six miles from Lake Michigan. Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

 

 

 

 

A 20-pound bighead Asian Carp was fished out of Lake Calumet in Chicago, the first one found to have breached an electrical barrier designed to keep the voracious invader out of Lake Michigan, federal officials said Wednesday.

 

The fish was found Tuesday during routine sampling, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, a group of government agencies trying to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes.

 

Agencies are working to remove any additional carp from Lake Calumet, just six miles downstream of Lake Michigan.

 

Fishery experts fear the prolific carp could dramatically alter the Great Lakes ecosystem by outcompeting native fish for food and habitat.

 

Environmental organizations used the discovery to renew calls to permanently block the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal which allowed the carp to travel from the Mississippi River watershed to the one that drains into Lake Michigan.

 

"Asian carp are like cockroaches, when you see one, you know its accompanied by many more you don't see," Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest Program said in a news release. "Now we can stop arguing about whether the fish are in Chicago's canals and start moving as quickly as possible toward permanently separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds.

 

Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes Office of the National Wildlife Federation, said there were no more physical barriers to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

 

"If the capture of this live fish doesn't confirm the urgency of this problem, nothing will," Buchsbaum said in a news release. "We need to pull out all the stops; this is code red for the Great Lakes."

 

An Asian carp was found on Dec. 3 in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal below the electric barrier system and just above the<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Lockport Lock and Dam, federal authorities say. Intensive sampling began on February 17 to find the carp above the electrical barrier. Sampling throughout the past four months did not produce the carp until now.

 

"We set out on a fact finding mission and we have found what we were looking for," John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said in a news release. "This is important evidence and the more information we have about where Asian carp are, the better chance we have of keeping them out of the Great Lakes."

 

 

 

 

 

bigggg！

[jiaodong1983]

what is name of this fish？

[Marko]

what is name of this fish？

 

They are Asian carp and this is really bad news!

[beginner]

i went to closes chinese market this week and saw it.. they were saling it.. they call big head or asian carp.. ugly fish

[Terry]

the only good thing is, they will all die in Simcoe

 

in the winter a snowmobile will run across the ice, the asian carp will all try to jump out of the water and kill themselves when they hit their head on the ice..problem solved

[Gary2242]

I have written every politician and biologist in the area and nobody seems to care or wants to listen to ideas that someone else thought of.

 

Close to the north end of the Mississippi there are the biggest Salt mines in the US. All they need to do is dump a truckload of rock salt into the river every week or two at the electrical barrier and that will greatly decrease the chances of the carp getting through the barrier and will compensate if there is a power shortage. The salt will push them all down river a few miles. By the time the salt gets a few miles down stream it will dissipate and not affect native fish species. A dump truck of rock salt delivered is about $60. This is a cheap way of dealing with the problem until they block the waterway. Salting the river to push them way down stream will also help prevent birds of prey from catching a carp and then dropping it above the electrical barrier.

 

I also think they should dump a few million Muskie in there. That will clean out the populations as well.

 

Gary

www.musky.ca

Edited January 4, 2011 by Gary from BrookTrout.ca

[OhioFisherman]

Don't worry about this issue. It's all a bunch of hooee contrived by biologists and a those who believe their nonsense.

Want to bet that in ten years we will still have a thriving fishery in the Great Lakes and its tribs. Please don't lose any sleep over this issue. It's the same thing as the biologists that claimed the sky is falling with the Gypsy moth, then the Asian Long horn beetle. The only harm these insects did was caused by the people who listened to the biologists and convinced bureaucrats to spend billions to fight them. Made no difference and we are still seeing forests as always.

Sinker

 

Hmmm? American Chestnut tree, for the most part gone, Elm trees, vanishing, Ash trees, all of mine dying. I guess if you can`t find anything else to fish for Carp are an alternative? They look like Salmon to me?

[hammercarp]

Here's an interesting development.

Asian carp on the menu

[beginner]

hmmm yum yum lol

[KGuppy]

yah, I've also seen these bad boys for sale in the asian supermarkets, they can get really big..i hope the find a grand solution post haste!

[jiaodong1983]

nice

[Loadman]

are they like the grass carp?

[MCTFisher9120]

the only good thing is, they will all die in Simcoe

 

in the winter a snowmobile will run across the ice, the asian carp will all try to jump out of the water and kill themselves when they hit their head on the ice..problem solved

 

Couldn't be more true lol. They will make it. Even common Carp I have never seen in the small lakes I fish out in Leeds & The Thousand Islands I well saw this summer. In the same spot's I was bassin I came across a school of 5 or 10 huge carp...I have been fishing there the last 10 years and never saw one and on the trip that was one sighting during a 30day trip. I'm sure these Asian Carp are here just a matter of seeing how nature battles back against them.

[Loadman]

They're heeeeere!!! Carp breach electrical barrier at Chicago; 20-pounder found six miles from Lake Michigan

June 23, 2010 / G

reatlakesecho.org

Wonder how they taste? lol

 

 

Bighead carp found just six miles from Lake Michigan. Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

 

 

 

 

A 20-pound bighead Asian Carp was fished out of Lake Calumet in Chicago, the first one found to have breached an electrical barrier designed to keep the voracious invader out of Lake Michigan, federal officials said Wednesday.

 

The fish was found Tuesday during routine sampling, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, a group of government agencies trying to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes.

 

Agencies are working to remove any additional carp from Lake Calumet, just six miles downstream of Lake Michigan.

 

Fishery experts fear the prolific carp could dramatically alter the Great Lakes ecosystem by outcompeting native fish for food and habitat.

 

Environmental organizations used the discovery to renew calls to permanently block the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal which allowed the carp to travel from the Mississippi River watershed to the one that drains into Lake Michigan.

 

"Asian carp are like cockroaches, when you see one, you know its accompanied by many more you don't see," Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest Program said in a news release. "Now we can stop arguing about whether the fish are in Chicago's canals and start moving as quickly as possible toward permanently separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds.

 

Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes Office of the National Wildlife Federation, said there were no more physical barriers to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

 

"If the capture of this live fish doesn't confirm the urgency of this problem, nothing will," Buchsbaum said in a news release. "We need to pull out all the stops; this is code red for the Great Lakes."

 

An Asian carp was found on Dec. 3 in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal below the electric barrier system and just above the<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Lockport Lock and Dam, federal authorities say. Intensive sampling began on February 17 to find the carp above the electrical barrier. Sampling throughout the past four months did not produce the carp until now.

 

"We set out on a fact finding mission and we have found what we were looking for," John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said in a news release. "This is important evidence and the more information we have about where Asian carp are, the better chance we have of keeping them out of the Great Lakes."

 

[Alfiegee]

At least Hammer has a clue.

 

Alfie.

[rmarentette]

At least Hammer has a clue.

 

Alfie.

[rmarentette]

The Ministry of Natural Resources is investigating another large border discovery of Asian carp, an invasive species commercial fishermen have said could be catastrophic if they spread into the Great Lakes.

 

A ministry conservation officer was contacted Tuesday night by the Canada Border Services Agency at the Ambassador Bridge about a truckload of fish coming from the United States that had 14,000 pounds of Asian carp, ministry spokesman John Cooper said late Wednesday afternoon.

 

The investigation continues and no charges have been laid, he said.

 

In January there were two seizures of live Asian carp that together totaled more than 9,000 pounds at the Ambassador Bridge. While trucks can transport live fish, it is illegal to possess live Asian carp in Ontario.

 

Asian carp includes bighead carp, which can reach more than 100 pounds, silver carp, grass carp and black carp.

 

The Ontario Commercial Fisheries Association said it could be catastrophic if Asian carp get into the Great Lakes.

 

The U.S. government is trying to keep Asian carp from getting past an electric barrier in a Chicago canal system and into Lake Michigan. The concern with live Asian carp in Ontario is they could be released. If a truck carrying live fish crashed near a bridge and there were live Asian carp they might be able to get into a stream and then into the Great Lakes.

 

 

 

 

http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/02/29/asian-carp-seized-at-windsor-detroit-border/

[hammercarp]

The Ministry of Natural Resources is investigating another large border discovery of Asian carp, an invasive species commercial fishermen have said could be catastrophic if they spread into the Great Lakes.

 

A ministry conservation officer was contacted Tuesday night by the Canada Border Services Agency at the Ambassador Bridge about a truckload of fish coming from the United States that had 14,000 pounds of Asian carp, ministry spokesman John Cooper said late Wednesday afternoon.

 

The investigation continues and no charges have been laid, he said.

 

In January there were two seizures of live Asian carp that together totaled more than 9,000 pounds at the Ambassador Bridge. While trucks can transport live fish, it is illegal to possess live Asian carp in Ontario.

 

Asian carp includes bighead carp, which can reach more than 100 pounds, silver carp, grass carp and black carp.

 

The Ontario Commercial Fisheries Association said it could be catastrophic if Asian carp get into the Great Lakes.

 

The U.S. government is trying to keep Asian carp from getting past an electric barrier in a Chicago canal system and into Lake Michigan. The concern with live Asian carp in Ontario is they could be released. If a truck carrying live fish crashed near a bridge and there were live Asian carp they might be able to get into a stream and then into the Great Lakes.

 

 

 

 

http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/02/29/asian-carp-seized-at-windsor-detroit-border/

 

The MNR and our border guards are doing what they should be doing and I, like everybody else is happy they are there to do it. We do not need those fish here. But the odds of something happening like you describe are very , very small. The real threat is from anglers in the states using asian carp fry as bait and dumping them out into waters that connect to the Great Lakes at the end of the day. Also there is the possibility of a malicious nut doing it deliberately. Just think about how tempting that would be for some ARA lunatic. Destroying commercial and sport fishing in the Great Lakes by simply allowing life to spread. And the fact that this was started by farm raising fish. Now there's an ARA crazy's dream come true. The more media coverage this gets the more likely that this will happen.

There is also the fact that life does spread and we are almost powerless to stop it.