UPDATE: Small Asian Carp Found in Marseilles Pool of Illinois River

p>October 30, 2015

On October 22, 2015, as part of an on-going comprehensive monitoring plan for assessing location and populations of Asian carp in the Illinois Waterway, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) sampling crews detected two small silver carp in the Marseilles Pool of the Illinois River. This site, near Moody Bayou, upstream of Seneca, Illinois, marks the furthest upstream location fish of this size have been captured. The fish, captured via electrofishing and measuring about 6.5 inches in length, will be aged by researchers to determine what year they were spawned.

These small fish are approximately 12 miles closer than our previous finding. Currently, there are three locks and dams, the electric dispersal barriers and more than 76 miles between them and Lake Michigan. This finding brings the leading edge of juvenile Asian carp detections about 66 miles closer to Lake Michigan than it was at the beginning of 2015.

Monitoring for juvenile Asian carp in the Illinois River, Des Plaines River, and the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) takes place through sampling identified in the 2015 Monitoring and Response Plan by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and research organizations from throughout the state. Most notably, USFWS targeted these smaller fish with standard and experimental gears to increase detection of these sizes of Asian carp, concentrating on the historical locations and identifying any upstream movement. This sampling targets a segment of the Asian carp population typically missed with adult sampling gears and provides information to help determine where Asian carp are successfully spawning.

Complete details of the 2015 Monitoring and Response Plan for Asian carp in the Illinois River and CAWS can be found online at www.asiancarp.us.

Graphic illustration of the presence of bighead and silver carp in Illinois Waterway. View full map (PDF)