The carp are coming (Invasive Carp part 1)

Invasive silver, bighead, black and grass carp (often collectively known as Asian carp) have upended ecosystems and caused economic pandemonium after being introduced into some of North America’s largest lakes and rivers. There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty about what could happen if these carp become established in the Great Lakes.

In this episode, the Introduced team takes a trip to the world’s largest electric fish dispersal barriers on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which is the only link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The electric barriers were constructed here because if you were to follow the river only 100 miles southwest toward Peoria, you’d find the highest population density of silver and bighead carp of anywhere in the world.

Next, we go south to Kentucky, where we get a glimpse at how a silver and bighead carp invasion impacted tourism and the fishing industry in the rural, water-driven Kentucky Lake area. Then, Titus Seilheimer helps predict how invasive carp could change the Great Lakes. Lastly, we hear about the two dramatic days when carp were found past the electric barriers – once in 2010 and once in 2017.

EDIT: In this episode, we state that the dense and reproducing carp population is 20 miles downstream of the electric carp barriers. This is incorrect – the dense and reproducing Asian Carp population is located 100 miles downstream of the barriers in the Peoria and La Grange pools of the Illinois River.