Speaker 1: Home of the best Bengals coverage and those Cincinnati Reds. Danny,
Speaker 1: good morning to you, sir. I really appreciate this. This
Speaker 1: is a complex situation this morning, and we'll.
Speaker 2: Have it all straight now. Alrighty, jumping right to it.
Speaker 1: Got my issue of Ohio Autor News about it was
Speaker 1: a couple issues ago, and they're in the story. Nearly
Speaker 1: forty six million pounds of carp removed in Illinois. I
Speaker 1: thought that was intriguing and that was the first half
Speaker 1: of the year. So digging into it and tracking it down.
Speaker 2: We have what.
Speaker 1: Is known as the Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee, and
Speaker 1: I welcome Janet Lebson with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Speaker 2: Janet, good morning, how are you?
Speaker 3: Good morning, Chip, Thank you for inviting me to join
Speaker 3: you and your listeners this morning.
Speaker 1: Well, this is fantastic And in thirty one years I've
Speaker 1: ever had anyone from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Shame
Speaker 1: on me. But that is about to change drastically going
Speaker 1: down the road, because there's a lot of other subject
Speaker 1: matter out there to cover. Nonetheless, coming back to this,
Speaker 1: this is a huge regional coordinating committee and I hadn't
Speaker 1: I hadn't realized that this existed until my story came
Speaker 1: in my Ohio Outdoor News. So you could give us
Speaker 1: an overview, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'd be happy to And maybe I should start
Speaker 3: by saying, the partnership that you're referring to is focused
Speaker 3: on the Great Lakes region and keeping Karp out of
Speaker 3: the Great Lakes, but there's a whole other partnership for
Speaker 3: the Mississippi River basin that involves just as many partners.
Speaker 3: In fact, altogether there are forty seven partners formally joined
Speaker 3: up in partnership to manage the invasive carp situation. So
Speaker 3: one reason I wanted you to have Brian also on
Speaker 3: your show is because Brian is very much involved with
Speaker 3: in leading in both of those partnerships.
Speaker 2: So you get this the.
Speaker 4: Whole big picture there.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we need, is the whole big picture,
Speaker 1: because in twenty minutes, that's the hell of a picture
Speaker 1: to paint for our listeners out there. Even though they're
Speaker 1: all in the woods, are heading to the woods going
Speaker 1: deer hunting or maybe duck hunting or something like that,
Speaker 1: we're by the same token, we're anglers too, So we
Speaker 1: appreciate and love our waterways that we use during the
Speaker 1: balance of the year.
Speaker 2: But what this covers what four species of carp?
Speaker 3: Yes, there are four different kinds. When we use the
Speaker 3: term and base of carp. There's a big head carp,
Speaker 3: silver carp, grass carp, and black carp. And the kind
Speaker 3: that most people tend to know about are the silver
Speaker 3: carp because they notoriously leap out of the water when
Speaker 3: they're disturbed by a boat. And I'm guessing a lot
Speaker 3: of your listeners have seen the tons of YouTube video
Speaker 3: there are on this and of course can be a
Speaker 3: very big safety issue as.
Speaker 1: But the coordinating groups, and there's a lot of them,
Speaker 1: are they under the auspices of the US Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service or you're just a partner.
Speaker 3: We're a partner, and we have a leading role in
Speaker 3: it because of the federal funding that's come into it. So,
Speaker 3: for example, the Mississippi River Basin Partnership has been around
Speaker 3: for a long time. The states came together to manage
Speaker 3: fisheries better in general, and then the karp situation just
Speaker 3: kept getting worse and worse, and so that became one
Speaker 3: of their focus areas and so we have a role
Speaker 3: in that one. But then the Great Lakes One started
Speaker 3: in twenty ten when people started to get more and
Speaker 3: more concerned that they were going to get into the
Speaker 3: Great Lakes through the Chicago Area Waterway because of the
Speaker 3: abundant population in the Illinois River where there's that access there.
Speaker 1: So overall, where are we in the process of management?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really kind of a loaded question, But
Speaker 1: are are we at a certain stage or a point
Speaker 1: in time from I guess your perspective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me give you a little perspective on that.
Speaker 3: I think things have changed a lot over the last
Speaker 3: fifteen years because of these partnerships coalescing and because of
Speaker 3: the federal state collaboration on this and Congress providing more
Speaker 3: funding so that we could do more, and what we're
Speaker 3: doing to try to protect recreational fishing opportunities and native
Speaker 3: fisheries and the communities that are relying on tourism and
Speaker 3: other water recreation to help with that. What we're trying
Speaker 3: to do is three main things. Even though the situation
Speaker 3: with KARP is different in different parts of the Mississippi
Speaker 3: River basin, there are three main we're doing. The first
Speaker 3: one is targeted mass removal, getting massive amounts of fish
Speaker 3: out of the water, and those efforts are led by
Speaker 3: the States, and Brian can tell you all about that.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: That is a great place for us to kind of
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Then we when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get the other I guess second and third portions
Speaker 1: of that. And at the same time we'll get Brian
Speaker 1: Schoening in here, who's the Aquatic News and Species program
Speaker 1: manager out of the Illinois DNR.
Speaker 2: So everybody sit tight.
Speaker 1: This is tough on my end, even tougher on everybody
Speaker 1: else's in my producer's going down seven hundred WLW Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: Big Outdoors back in a moment. Hey, we're back the
Speaker 1: Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati, home of
Speaker 1: the best Bengals coverage in the Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Reds and much more. But we'll save that for later.
Speaker 1: So Janet Lebson is with me, she's with the US
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Service, and Brian Schoening is joining us
Speaker 1: with the Illinois d n R. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: invasive carp programs on kind of the big world view
Speaker 1: in the US, and Janet, we were kind of had
Speaker 1: to go pay some bills catch that break and so
Speaker 1: there's two other parts to the where we are at
Speaker 1: this stage in time.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was saying, targeted mass removal is one of
Speaker 3: the main things we do to manage a base of CARP,
Speaker 3: and developing deterrent technologies and barrier constructing barriers is the
Speaker 3: second big thing we do. And the third thing is
Speaker 3: widespread monitoring. And that's significant in the sense that it
Speaker 3: informs the other two and it helps us prioritize where
Speaker 3: to do the mass removal and what kind of technologies
Speaker 3: we might need in different places, et cetera. And I
Speaker 3: just wanted to mention since you do have a lot
Speaker 3: of anglers listening, I hope they'll never underestimate how important
Speaker 3: it is and they encounter invasive KLARP to let their
Speaker 3: state DNR know and to if they can take a
Speaker 3: moment to learn to accurately id the fish, because even
Speaker 3: one person finding one in an area that we didn't
Speaker 3: know about can really help with our prevention.
Speaker 1: Well, and this neck of the woods at least, that
Speaker 1: sims downy area, but you know beyond, but you've got
Speaker 1: the Ohio River and there's a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there fishing for sawguy right now, which will continue through
Speaker 1: probably February of March. So you know, who knows what
Speaker 1: what might turn up, and so I Jana Hope just
Speaker 1: kind of hang on and listen in if you will. Brian,
Speaker 1: let me bring you in with the Illinois DNR, because
Speaker 1: I guess the referral to forty six million pounds of
Speaker 1: clarp removed in Illinois in a half a year or
Speaker 1: first half of twenty twenty five is this huge.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a lot of dogfit.
Speaker 4: So that number is a cumulative number of the course
Speaker 4: of the last several years. Typically, what we do as
Speaker 4: far as removal on the Illinois River is about somewhere
Speaker 4: between six and eight million pounds a year with our
Speaker 4: commercial fishing incentive program, and then we have contracted fishers
Speaker 4: in the upper part of the river that remove a
Speaker 4: million million and a half a year.
Speaker 2: So if we take those two numbers on.
Speaker 4: An annual base, it's roughly about ten million pounds out
Speaker 4: of the Illinois River. We also are engaged with Mississippi River.
Speaker 4: Illinois is kind of unique and that we've got this
Speaker 4: connection to the Great Lakes see the Illinois River, but
Speaker 4: we also have a footprint in the Mississippi River and
Speaker 4: the Ohio River. So we're involved with a whole host
Speaker 4: of other partners working on removal programs. We're actually we
Speaker 4: administer instead of programs for process or removal in Kentucky
Speaker 4: and Barkley Lakes. Even so, we're working with Kentucky, We're
Speaker 4: working with Indiana, we're working with Tennessee, with Missouri. This
Speaker 4: is a problem that needs to have a big vision
Speaker 4: approach to it. No single state is going to be
Speaker 4: able to really move the needle in a meaningful way.
Speaker 4: It needs to be a collaborative effort across sub basins
Speaker 4: and the entire Mississippi River basin to really have the
Speaker 4: impact that we'd.
Speaker 1: Like has there any I don't recall anything of this
Speaker 1: magnitude in terms of a species of fish, at least
Speaker 1: fish you know in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: Is that accurate?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So the analog I guess would be.
Speaker 4: Sea lamper in the Great Lakes.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: These things came in in the fifties and started wreaking
Speaker 4: havoc across and it required all of the Great Lake
Speaker 4: states and provinces to come together and work on solutions.
Speaker 4: And we're essentially re implementing that model with these particular
Speaker 4: fish within the Mississippi River basin, and so we've always
Speaker 4: had a collaborative work environment as it related to inner
Speaker 4: jurisdictional fish within the Mississippi River micro which is miss
Speaker 4: simeor State Cooperative Resource Association, has led that since the
Speaker 4: early nineties. It's not official or you know, sort of
Speaker 4: government sanctioned, but we are working towards that end as well.
Speaker 4: With uh, we've got actually a couple of bills in
Speaker 4: Congress for the establishment of a Mississippi River Basin Fisheries Commission,
Speaker 4: which would you know, help to facilitate more of this
Speaker 4: work and more alignment in programs and make sure that
Speaker 4: we're implementing a unified collaborative approach across the basin. And
Speaker 4: you know, that's really where we need to be.
Speaker 1: Well that and it's a good point to kind of
Speaker 1: hit a break because I've got quite a few questions.
Speaker 2: Will never cover everything we need to in that five to.
Speaker 1: Five thirty slot we're here sitting in for la last
Speaker 1: thirty one years, but we're going to do our damned
Speaker 1: chip Hart the Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred WLW
Speaker 1: Cincinnati will be back in a moment. Chip Haart, Gary
Speaker 1: Jeff will be wandering in here at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the hour and I'll let him talk to you about
Speaker 1: the rest of the day because I got too much
Speaker 1: to do this morning.
Speaker 2: So Brian, Brian showing us with us.
Speaker 1: He is the Aquatic Nuisance Program manager with the Illinois
Speaker 1: DNR and part of this huge car coordinating committee or committees,
Speaker 1: there's multiple committees. Have they acted, Brian, have any of
Speaker 1: the species? Well, what do you what's the most concerning species?
Speaker 1: You mentioned this? I think Janet earlier mentioned the silver car.
Speaker 1: Has that gotten into like Lake Michigan through what was
Speaker 1: that the Chicago River or any other you know, I
Speaker 1: guess tributary.
Speaker 4: So the silver car primarily confined below Dresden Island dam
Speaker 4: ounta of Probably your listeners are not familiar with Illinois,
Speaker 4: and it took me a little lot to get familiar
Speaker 4: with this as well. But yeah, there's a there's an
Speaker 4: electric barrier that is sort of close to Lake Michigan,
Speaker 4: and they have not really been found. We picked up
Speaker 4: maybe two fish over the course the last fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Above that. We do extensive monitoring in the spring and
Speaker 4: the fall, using DNA as well as traditional fishing gears
Speaker 4: to to sort of monitor that to make sure that
Speaker 4: we're not getting any fish through there, So pretty confident
Speaker 4: that they're not in in Lake Michigan within the Ohio
Speaker 4: River basin. Probably they're all the way up to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: but the numbers are really not significant above about marklan Pool,
Speaker 4: I'd say, so, yeah, so you know that area that
Speaker 4: that area right there is sort of kind of a
Speaker 4: little bit of the leading edge there. We don't have
Speaker 4: reproduction up there, but we do have some adult fish.
Speaker 4: And then you know the Mississippi River. They're up in
Speaker 4: the Mississippi. But again that that sort of reproductive front
Speaker 4: is about midway and that's sort of, you know, the
Speaker 4: measure that we use to what, you know, how effective
Speaker 4: we can be at controlling the populations. If we can
Speaker 4: get fishing in place and places where we don't have reproduction,
Speaker 4: we can really reduce numbers pretty significantly. And we've seen
Speaker 4: that in Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. The coordinated commercial fishing
Speaker 4: has reduced populations and they have not really seen any
Speaker 4: reproduction in those two lakes. So it's had an overall
Speaker 4: positive impact on those those native fisheries. You know, the
Speaker 4: bassa crappy, the things that people go to those lakes
Speaker 4: to fish for, so you know, we're trying to implement
Speaker 4: those same sort of approaches within these other river basins
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: Back to the commercial fishing part, seems is that the
Speaker 1: most effective. So what are these fish being used for
Speaker 1: that are commercially caught.
Speaker 4: So depending on which processor is buying them, there's any
Speaker 4: number of things that they could be used for. A
Speaker 4: lot of the fish go into fish meal, some of
Speaker 4: it into fertilizer. Some is used for bait for either
Speaker 4: crawlfish down south, you know the crawl fresh boils. They
Speaker 4: use a bait for net or lobster, the same sort
Speaker 4: of thing there. Some of it is used for pet
Speaker 4: food and then there's also growing human consumption avenue as well.
Speaker 2: This is actually these are.
Speaker 4: The most consumed fish species in the world, all across
Speaker 4: the world. Yeah, it's a recognized, highly sought after and
Speaker 4: desired fish. The meat is light white and flaky. It's
Speaker 4: very much like a crappie. The problems are just bony.
Speaker 4: So it's hard to get American consumers to adopt something
Speaker 4: that you know, it's it's not your traditional cod or
Speaker 4: perch filet, so it makes it a little bit harder
Speaker 4: sell but we've worked on that end as well with
Speaker 4: our Illinois launched a copy initiative so several years ago,
Speaker 4: which is this sort of a rebranding effort, similar to
Speaker 4: what they did with Orange Ruffy or Chilean sea bass.
Speaker 4: Those fish were respectively known as you know, slime head
Speaker 4: and Patagonia two fish. So you know, we spent thirty
Speaker 4: plus years convincing people that these fish were the worst
Speaker 4: thing in the world right and that they're going to
Speaker 4: destroy everything. It makes it really challenging to do a
Speaker 4: pivot and then say, oh, by the way, they're good
Speaker 4: to eat too, and you should give them a try. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean, we're pretty open, but I know if we
Speaker 4: use the you know, the Kopi is the name we
Speaker 4: came up with the playoff of copious, and we've gotten
Speaker 4: some traction with it. There's some folks that have adopted it,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's tested really well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a.
Speaker 4: Market I'm a fish biologist, so you know that's where
Speaker 4: I come in.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we got to hit a short break, but
Speaker 1: you know I want to We'll continue putting this out there,
Speaker 1: but we'll do the break, come back and tell how
Speaker 1: people can get evolved and get more information and gosh,
Speaker 1: I got so much more to ask, but I'll just
Speaker 1: have to set that for another day. Chip Hart by
Speaker 1: guest Brian showing with Illinois d n R and of
Speaker 1: course Janet with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the
Speaker 1: Big Outdoors, this radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Sure ask for sustainable seafood.
Speaker 1: And it lives in with US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Speaker 1: Would you like to give everybody an opportunity to do
Speaker 1: an Internet search for specifics on your end?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I would recommend is we have a pretty
Speaker 3: comprehensive website called Managing Invasive Carps. So if they use
Speaker 3: that as the Google search with US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 3: Service should.
Speaker 4: Take you there.
Speaker 1: Fantastic Brian shooning with the Illinois DNR And if people
Speaker 1: want to find out more about what's happening on your.
Speaker 4: End, yeah, so I would say, you know, Invasivecarp dot
Speaker 4: us is the ic ic R c C website, microrivers
Speaker 4: dot org is the Mississippi River Basin, and then of
Speaker 4: course we've got Illinois DNR. Folks are interested in what
Speaker 4: we're doing at twoscope dot com, which is another website
Speaker 4: with the human consumption market in mind. Yeah, I just
Speaker 4: encourage your listeners. I mean, you've got district biologist, fisheries
Speaker 4: biologists in your state. It for you, and they love
Speaker 4: to hear from you. They want to hear from you.
Speaker 4: If you've got questions, if you need answers to particular things,
Speaker 4: or if you see something that you think is strange,
Speaker 4: by all means, reach out to those folks. Go to
Speaker 4: your agency's website to list the biologists. You can find
Speaker 4: the right contact, or just call the general number.
Speaker 2: They'll get in touch with the right person.
Speaker 4: We work for the fishermen, so yes, we're here for
Speaker 4: you absolutely.
Speaker 1: And you know around here it's like you create. You
Speaker 1: create the market first and then fulfill it. Okay, that
Speaker 1: was an old WBN thing. That was another radio station. Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: hey the two of you, thank you very much. I
Speaker 1: appreciate and uh, we'll put it up on a Big
Speaker 1: Outdoors Facebook page. But after that go to podcasts for
Speaker 1: more Chip part the Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred
Speaker 1: WLW Cincinnati'd be safe in the woods, safe on the water,
Speaker 1: and safe in that tree stand.