How can asian carp be stopped

Since then, governments on both sides of the border have taken action. In June , the federal government announced new rules that Asian carp must now be gutted before being allowed to cross into Canada from the U. There are a number of things you can do to help stop an Asian carp invasion. Stopping invasive Asian carp. To stymie reproduction, one strategy would target those rivers with things like acoustic bubble barriers a barrier that uses sound and a curtain of bubbles to drive fish away, which is safer than electrifying the water in rivers where the fish could spawn.

But all of this is conjecture about an invasion that biologists concede is too complex to predict the results. The zebra mussel, round goby and Eurasian ruffe all moved from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi here.

And to be effective, we need a system that stops all of it, not just big fish heading to Lake Michigan. The electric barrier is too limited to achieve a comprehensive fix. Case in point: it had to be adjusted after it was built because the electric jolt was not effective on small fish, like say, juvenile Asian carp. And the electric barrier has no effect at all on invasive molluscs larvae attached to a barge hull.

Nor could it stop something really small, like the deadly fish virus hemorrhagic septicemia, which was transported from the East Coast to the Great Lakes and discovered in In a kind of sick irony, life moving through the system is only a problem of late because until now the canal waters were so toxic nothing could survive the mile journey. Such concerns about all aquatic life forms explain why fish biologists are nearly unified in their belief that America must re-establish the separation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system that existed until the Sanitary and Ship Canal was built at the dawn of the 20th century.

Re-separating the Great Lakes system and the Mississippi system will be a monumental undertaking and the agreement that Moy refers to is not likely to come easily or cheaply. Barge operators have raised concerns that a system would add expense to their service. Tourist ferryboat operators worry that a barrier in the wrong place would kill their business. The Alliance for the Great Lakes, a Chicago-based Great Lakes advocacy group, is one of the only organizations to have published a rough plan for how to accomplish the holy grail of preserving both environment and business.

Chicago knows how to think big and build big. As long as we can keep in that mindset, we can solve this problem. Possible solutions being discussed include gigantic mechanisms that would lift barges over a permanent barrier, or locks that always drain water back to the original basin, or transferring cargo so that barges would never move between the two water systems the surest way to prevent transfer of organisms that hitchhike on barge hulls.

But even the most optimistic observers say it could be 15 years before massive new infrastructure solutions would be in place. In the meantime, a multi-agency task force called the Asian Carp Workgroup has published a draft strategy that employs a collection of techniques to stop the advance: poisonings, a beefed up electric barrier, acoustic bubble barriers, netting, expanded commercial fishing.

On Monday evening, in the third week of March, the harbor of Frankfort, Michigan is virtually empty, the dozens of charter fishing boats that ply Lake Michigan during tourist season still in dry dock. They fear that if the barrier fails, Asian carp have the potential to decimate the big game fish of Lake Michigan and take down the charter fishing economic pillar of this community.

Speaking tonight are fish biologist Dr. Beyond just explaining the issue, a goal of the evening is motivating people to spread the word and write their representatives to convince them to shut the locks in Chicago as an interim emergency measure. Bailey is the last person to speak. The youthful, soft-spoken and thoughtful tribal chair with a ponytail to his waist begins by explaining the principle of seven generations, that decisions today should be made in the interest of children seven generations into the future.

That principle has convinced the tribe to do what it can to stop the advance of the carp, he explains. Bailey says he has an idea. He believes the Native American tribes in Michigan who signed the Treaty have a legal avenue that the states do not.

In that treaty, the federal government agreed to be the trustee of natural resources for Native People. Allowing the carp to invade Lake Michigan would be a breach of that agreement. He wants to know if the community would support the tribes if they were to head down that path—tribes are cautious about suing the federal government. The people clap. I often fishes in the Volga river and in the summer of watching an interesting picture of how the local fishermen fishers catch huge catfish over lbs , while attachment to them is a big asian carp about 20 lbs.

When I asked them why we need such a big bait, they answered me that som especially carp stuffed with meat to the population had not grown and the catfish do not eat other more valuable species of fish. Absolutely spot on coverage of a very complicated issue. Such a small part of this whole system, taking on so much responsibility. And Chicago demanding, forcing its way on the rest of us. Asian carp near Lake Michigan must be a 'wake-up call,' lawmakers say.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler freepress. Follow him on Twitter tsspangler. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter. Facebook Twitter Email. New plan would fight invasive Asian carp with air bubbles, electric shocks, noise.

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