More Carp DNA Found in Lake Erie

Silver carp.

From Lake Erie’s Sandusky Bay and Sandusky River comes bad news about Asian carp.  Twenty of 150 water samples tested positive for the presence of silver carp environmental DNA.

DNA was collected as part of extensive sampling effort conducted earlier this summer for Asian carp in Sandusky Bay and Maumee Bay in western Lake Erie. Maumee Bay DNA results are being analyzed.

On the positive side, no Asian carp were found through intensive electrofishing and test netting.

These areas are among the most productive in Lake Erie, the warmest and shallowest of the Great Lakes. As a consequence, Asian carp invasion could be catastrophic for bass, walleye, and yellow perch fisheries. Through their filter feeding, the exotics eliminate food needed for forage species, collapsing the food chain.

Read the full story here about the DNA discoveries.

Go here to see a video about how to identify bighead and silver carp. If they don’t recognize them, anglers who seine their own bait could accidentally transport these invaders from one fishery to another.

Rednecks Versus Carp

Journal Star photo

Check out the battle between the anglers with questionable fashion sense and aerobatic silver carp during the eighth annual  Original Redneck Fishing Tournament on the Illinois River.

Here's  the story.

Here’s the photo gallery.

Invasive Species Concerns Force Access Restrictions on Anglers

The failure of elected officials to protect our waters from aquatic invasive species is becoming more and more evident, not only in the damage done by these exotics but in restricted access for anglers and other boaters.

Here’s an example: Earlier this summer, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board unanimously approved an emergency order requiring all boats using its three public boat ramps to be inspected.

That in itself doesn’t restrict access. But the limited hours that inspectors will be at the launch sites does. For example, if you want to go fishing mid-day Monday through Thursday, you can’t. Or, if you do, you will get a ticket for violating the order.

See the full story here.

It’s certainly understandable that the city wants to prevent the spread of invasives such as mussels and Eurasian watermilfoil by hitchhiking on and in boats.

 But in bowing to special interests for decades, our state and federal governments unquestionably have caused this crisis. For example, they’ve allowed commercial shipping to introduce zebra and quagga mussels --- along with dozens of other species --- into the Great Lakes via ballast water from ocean-going ships.

They’ve allowed the exotic pet industry and plant nursery businesses to sell problematic species that now degrade our waters, including milfoil, hydrilla, water hyacinth, parrot feather, giant salvinia, and Brazilian elodea, among others.

And they’ve permitted fish farmers to bring in silver, bighead, black, and grass carp, which now infest the nation’s rivers and threaten sport fisheries.

Of course, that wasn’t the intent of any of these special interests. But shipping has opposed stricter standards for ballast water, while the others have insisted that they would be damaged economically if not allowed to import with few restrictions.

And officials have allowed these lobbies to mostly get what they want without consequences. Now, this irresponsible behavior is causing billions of dollars in damage to our country economically and environmentally, as well as forcing access restrictions on anglers and boaters to prevent further spread of this invasives.

Certainly, responsible fishermen and the fishing industry should help contain these invasions. Wisconsin provides an example of that, where bait shop owners are helping educate anglers about how to prevent the spread of aquatic invasives.

See the full story here.

Meanwhile, anglers and the industry also must be vigilant and active against those who will use concerns about invasives to advance an anti-fishing agenda.  Hints of that agenda show clearly in a recent article in the Pioner Press.

Check out these excerpts about how to keep Asian carp from spreading up the Mississippi River:

"Another option? Eliminate recreational boating from the lock and dams."

"Another suggestion is to limit fishing in Pool 2, to give native fish a chance to flourish before the carp arrive."

Stocking Exotics Is Thoughtless and Selfish Act

The snakehead is growing in popularity among anglers.

This fish has been spread far beyond its native waters. It leaps often from the water. It has damaged fisheries.

Name that fish.

If you said “silver carp,” you are correct.

But that description also applies to the largemouth bass.

I thought about that recently, after reading this article.

Before I make my point about that, let me first explain some terms. An “exotic” or “non-native” is any species introduced outside its native range. It can be from another continent or it simply can be from another watershed.

If it proves harmful, then it is also can be termed “invasive” and/or a “nuisance” species.

Few would argue that silver and bighead carp, both from Asia, are both invasive and nuisance.

On the other hand, the largemouth bass is the most popular sport fish in North America and possibly the world. Where’s the negative in that?

Let’s start with its historic --- and limited --- range. It existed originally east of the Rocky Mountains from southern Ontario and Quebec down to east Texas and northeastern Mexico and across to western New York and Pennsylvania, as well as the southeastern states.

Today, the largemouth is established in every state except Alaska, as well as Japan, Spain, Italy, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, among other countries.

In most instances, the predatory bass has been a welcome addition to sport fisheries because it both adaptable and cooperative. But that is not always the case. For example, Japanese resource managers report that it is eliminating smaller, native species.

My point is this: I see the same thing starting to happen with the snakehead as happened with the largemouth bass. Anglers have begun to recognize it as an aggressive sport fish that is fun to catch, and, thus far, it hasn't seemed to damage the Potomac River and its tributaries.

My fear is that anglers will spread snakeheads because they want to catch more of them and in waters closer to their homes.

We planted largemouth and smallmouth bass ---- along with rainbow and German brown trout --- in new fisheries during a less enlightened time, when we gave no thought to consequences and ecological balance. We created some great fisheries. But we devastated some as well, including many waters populated by brook trout.

Today we know about the problems that exotic species can bring, as we watch Asian carp cause catastrophic damage to our rivers.

Yet anglers, lakefront property owners, and others continue to illegally stock fish. Among them: grass carp, northern pike, walleye, and crappie. Will the snakehead be next?

 I hope not. To do so would be an incredibly thoughtless and selfish act in which a public resource is put at risk for private gain.

For the most part, we got lucky with largemouth bass. But we’ve had plenty of examples since to show that, most times, introduction of exotics does more harm than good. 

Grass Carp Also Threaten, Damage Fisheries

One of four illegally stocked grass carp that Activist Angler has caught in lake behind his house.

Bighead and silver carp are making most of the news these days, as they threaten invasion of both the Great Lakes and inland fisheries in the Upper Midwest.

But before these two Asian carp species escaped from fish farms and began to devastate our rivers, a few states were trying grass carp --- yet another Asian carp species --- to manage invasive aquatic vegetation, notably hydrilla. And biologists developed a sterile (triploid) variety to lessen the likelihood that this exotic would reproduce in waters where it was introduced --- or to which it escaped.

For resource managers, the problem is that using these grass grazers for vegetation control is mostly an all-or-nothing proposition: Too much vegetation without them, none with them.

And the problem for the rest of us is that --- as with bighead and silver carp --- our elected officials bowed to special interests and failed to protect our aquatic resources. Grass carp always have been and continue to be much too easy to obtain.

As a consequence, illegal stockings are common, as has happened at the little lake behind my house. Grass carp now make up most of the biomass in the lake, meaning they basically have destroyed the sport fishery.

Fortunately, most grass carp sold today are sterile. But not all.

A grass carp recently shot by a bow angler in Michigan’s St. Joseph River was reproductively viable, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

What makes this especially disturbing is that the fish was in the Berrien County portion of the river ---- very near Lake Michigan.

DNR says this:

Grass carp are rarely found in Michigan waters. Previous cases were usually the result of illegal stocking in ponds or movement from other states where stocking genetically altered triploid fish for aquatic vegetation control is allowed.

Other states allow the stocking of triploid fish because they believe the fish have a low probability of reproduction, but the sterilization process is not 100 percent effective.

Given their potential negative effects on fish habitat, the DNR strongly opposes the use of triploid fish and reminds the public that live grass carp are illegal to possess, transport or stock in both public and private waters.

In response to this finding, the DNR’s Fisheries Division will continue to assess the distribution of grass carp in the lower St. Joseph River through electrofishing surveys this fall, monitoring movement through fish ladders and angler harvest reports. Potential points of entry will also be assessed to prevent further releases in Michigan waters.