The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee (ACRCC) has announced the release of an updated Monitoring and Response Plan (MRP) intended to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp, and to prevent the invasive fish species from developing self-sustaining populations in the Great Lakes. For the first time the MRP is being released concurrently with a summary of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes eDNA Monitoring Program.
The MRP outlines actions for the 2014 field season focused on monitoring and removal of Asian carp downstream of the Electric Barrier System in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) and the upper Illinois Waterway, and on-going evaluations of the effectiveness of barriers and gears used in keeping Asian carp from establishing in the CAWS and Lake Michigan.
“The 2014 Monitoring and Response Plan, continues to build off past efforts to protect the Great Lakes by using past data and results to focus attention on
actions that achieve the greatest results,” said Kevin Irons, Co-Chair of the ACRCC Monitoring Workgroup.
Separate from the MRP, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes eDNA Monitoring Program examines waters of the CAWS and also across the Great
Lakes basin, for early warning signs of Asian carp.
“The Great Lakes eDNA Monitoring Program highlights our partnership with Great Lakes states,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Deputy Director,
Charlie Wooley. “We’re excited to share with the public how we are working side-by-side with our state counterparts to collect information that will shape our understanding and response of the potential threat of Asian carp in waters throughout the Midwest.”
In addition to several reoccurring actions from last year, new actions to monitor populations of Asian carp in the upper Illinois Waterway and the Chicago Area Waterway System in 2014 include:
• Increased sampling for Asian carps downstream of the Electric Dispersal Barriers to better focus on the leading edge of the Asian carp population in the
CAWS.
• Contract commercial fishing crews will expend more effort in the target areas of the Marseilles and Dresden Island pools of the upper Illinois Waterway.
• A heightened Asian carp telemetry monitoring program around the Electric Dispersal Barriers.
• Monitoring for adult and juvenile bighead carp and silver carp in the upper Des Plaines River focused in four new target areas, and the river upstream of the former Hofmann Dam will be examined for potential Asian carp habitat.
• Testing the effects of water gun seismic pressure waves on in-water structures will be conducted before this technology is employed in critical navigational waters.
President Obama created the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee in 2009 to coordinate International, Federal, State and local efforts to combat Asian carp.
For more information and to read the MRP and the Great Lakes eDNA Monitoring Program, please visit: www.asiancarp.us/monitoring.htm .
.